


Mad Max Loses Control

by trippingatthedazeinn



Series: Control [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Anger Management, Angst, BAMF Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Background Neil Hargrove, Control Issues, Depression, Drama, F/M, Gen, Good Significant Other Lucas Sinclair, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Insomnia, Max goes off the deep end a little tbh, Nightmares, Teen Angst, Underage Drinking, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:20:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 101,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23812957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trippingatthedazeinn/pseuds/trippingatthedazeinn
Summary: With Neil in prison and gone from Max's life, things are supposed to be better...if only Max had known how real the monsters in her own head could become.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove & Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Dustin Henderson & Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Eleven | Jane Hopper & Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Jonathan Byers & Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Maxine "Max" Mayfield & Mike Wheeler, Maxine "Max" Mayfield & The Party, Maxine "Max" Mayfield/Lucas Sinclair, Steve Harrington & Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Will Byers & Maxine "Max" Mayfield
Series: Control [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1715692
Comments: 233
Kudos: 143





	1. Anger

**Author's Note:**

> This is the sequel to _Mad Max, In Control_. If you haven't read that story, this is definitely going to be confusing! I will give a short summary at the end of the first chapter if you don't want to read the whole thing (obviously it will spoil the story so don't scroll to read it if you plan to read the original!).
> 
> To everyone who is coming from having read that one, thank you for sticking with me!!
> 
> I will be updating this daily but if I ever get stressed out I will take the day off so I don't lose my mind!

**June 6, 1986**

Summer vacation was almost here. It was Friday, and next week was the last week of school. It was already hot in Hawkins, the average day breaking seventy-five degrees. Hawkins High School especially was miserably hot. For the past few weeks, practically the entire school had been spending the lunch period outside instead of in the cafeteria.

That was how it started.

Max was eating lunch with her friends, sitting on a shaded portion of the curb in front of the school. She was only half paying attention to their conversation, too tired to care much about it. She felt like she hadn’t slept properly in ages. It was only in the daylight that sleepiness overtook her, pushing her out of reality despite her attempts to fight it. At night, in the dark, she often laid awake until four in the morning, eyes clamped shut but sleep never arriving.

She was so zoned out that she didn’t even notice the orange blur soaring towards her face before she was knocked sideways into Dustin from the collision of the basketball with her head. She heard the sound of it bouncing away mixed in with the ringing in her ears as she jerked back to her sitting position, totally taken aback.

“What the hell?” She searched wildly for the offending basketball, rubbing her hand against the bump forming on the side of her head. It had rolled nearly into the parking lot and was being scooped up by a boy around her size that she recognized but didn’t really know.

“Holy shit, are you okay?” Lucas exclaimed, all her friends having seen the collision, Dustin having literally felt it.

“Yeah, but what the hell,” she said again, standing up from the curb. The boy who had clearly hit her with the basketball was already dribbling it back to the basketball hoop located some fifty feet to the right of where Max had been sitting. She expected him to apologize to her or somewhat acknowledge that he had full on taken her out, but he didn’t, instead gearing up for another shot with the basketball. “Is he not even going to say he’s sorry?”

“He’s probably a jerk,” Dustin said, also watching the boy shoot the basketball.

“Yeah, a total ass,” Max agreed, hand still on her head where the ball had struck her. “Whatever.”

“Not like you can make him say he’s sorry,” Mike said, shrugging.

She’d fully intended to ignore it, not caring enough to press the issue, but Mike’s words somehow felt like a challenge. “I mean, I could tell him he’s an ass,” she said, glaring in the direction of the boy. It wasn’t a big deal, but it was annoying.

“It’s probably not worth it,” Lucas objected, but she was already stepping forward, the concrete rough underneath her feet.

She made her way over to the basketball hoop, halting just close enough to it to be in the boy’s way so that he had to stop shooting. He looked irritated at her disrupting him, rolling the basketball back and forth between his hands. “Can I help you?” He asked.

“Yeah, maybe by saying you’re sorry for trying to knock me out with your stupid basketball,” she said loudly, attracting the attention of a few nearby people.

“What?” He squinted at her like he was trying to figure out if he knew her.

She refused to believe he hadn’t seen the basketball hit her. “Just say you’re sorry for hitting me, god.” She didn’t really know why she was doing this, considering how little it actually mattered. She just didn’t like the idea of someone thinking they could hit her and she wouldn’t say anything about it. Not like this boy even knew who she was, but it was the principal of the thing. Or something. She had not, admittedly, fully thought through this plan.

“Oh my god, I didn’t even know I hit you, okay? Can you move?”

“You _are_ an ass,” she said coldly, but still relatively loudly. “You obviously suck at basketball, too.”

“The hell? Are you trying to start something?” The boy stepped towards her, but he didn’t remotely frighten her.

She glanced at the clock hanging by the door to the cafeteria: a minute and a half until lunch ended. Lucas was right; it wasn’t worth it, anyway. She rolled her eyes pointedly and said, “Not worth my time,” turning around and going back to her friends, who were now standing up, focused on her.

“That was kind of badass,” Dustin said admiringly, but he was too liberal with that word. Max knew what badass meant, and this wasn’t it.

“Not really,” she replied, cleaning up her lunch off the curb. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You did more than Dustin would do,” Lucas said, laughing at the dirty look Dustin gave him.

The bell rang, increasing the noise level as everyone packed into the entrance with notably less urgency than they had at the beginning of the school year. Final exams had finished and most classes were a joke at this point. Max herself dragged her feet on the way to math, dreading sitting still in the boiling hot room for an hour while they watched a documentary about modern uses of mathematics.

By the time school ended, Max was exhausted. Her head hurt, too, which didn’t help. She was intentionally slow in getting her skateboard from her locker and heading out of school to meet her friends. As always, they had plans to hang out after school, but today she didn’t feel like it. She’d felt like it less and less over the past few months, choosing to go home to an empty house and sit in silence. She knew it was depressing, especially because she always regretted it when she did it, but the allure was too strong and she was too tired.

Lucas, Mike, and Dustin were waiting for her outside the school, already having unlocked their bikes. She dropped her skateboard onto the cement and said, “I have to go home today, my mom wants to eat dinner together.”

She’d been breaking _friends don’t lie_ so much lately, it had started to lose its meaning. She hated that; the promise of it had always been so reassuring. But now it was just something she thought every time she lied anyway.

“But you were talking this morning about what we should do later today,” Lucas protested.

“Yeah, I forgot. The basketball probably knocked the reminder back into my head,” she joked. “I’ll come over tomorrow and we can go to the arcade.”

Lucas looked disappointed. Her stomach twinged with guilt over the lie. He didn’t argue further, telling her, “Come at eleven tomorrow then, I guess.”

Mike and Dustin nodded to confirm the time, and she gave them a thumbs up, kicking off on her board. “Bye!” She called, soaring across the parking lot and towards the road.

She regretted her decision to skip out on hanging out with them when she was barely halfway home. The rush of people leaving school had cleared out now that she was on a back road, only trees visible in front of her. She glided around ruts in the road, treasuring the brief coolness that came from the air on her face. She’d craved a little peace, but now that she’d had ten minutes of it, it was converting to loneliness at the prospect of spending the next six hours alone at the house.

Gone were the days of Susan cooking family dinners, served at six-thirty. Max had, of course, always avoided these when she could because of Neil. But now that Neil was gone, eating dinner with her mother was nice when it happened. It just didn’t, hardly ever.

Without Neil’s income, it had been a struggle for them to keep their house. Susan had started working as a bank teller like she had in California, but that sole income wasn’t even enough to support them. She’d had to take another job, a night job at as a waitress at Enzo’s. She left every morning around when Max did and didn’t get home until nine or ten at night. Max couldn’t imagine working that much, so she would never dare complain about it, but it sucked. She and her mother were never going to be best friends, were never going to have a particularly normal relationship, but it was like one obstacle in the way of their relationship (Neil) had been traded out for another (work). Max obviously preferred the latter, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t unfortunate.

She stopped her skateboard with her foot in front of her house, not really wanting to be there anymore. Tough luck, though; if she went back to her friends, they’d know she’d lied, and she was trying to be better about lying to them. In reality, she had hardly improved at it at all.

Max got her house key from her backpack and opened the front door resignedly, rolling her skateboard into the living room with her foot and leaving it there. She dropped her backpack down beside it, not needing it for homework seeing as there was none this late in the school year. Then she just stood there, facing into the house, completely unsure of what she should even do.

After a solid minute of standing there like an idiot, she went to her bedroom, shutting the door behind her. She took off her shoes and flopped down on the bed, eyes staring up at the popcorn ceiling without truly seeing it. Her chest felt heavy in an indescribable and unexplainable way. There was no reason for her to feel like this, but it came every time she was alone, every time she zoned out even when she was with her friends. It was frustrating and tiring.

She was so tired. Her eyes ached. She closed them, the darkness hardly different than the nothingness she saw when caught up in her thoughts. She shifted her position on the bed so that her head was at the end and her feet were up by her pillow. The afternoon sunlight coming in through the window shone on her, the slight warmth of it comfortable. Like this, sleep came more easily. She drifted into it, her thoughts jumbling until they didn’t exist at all.

When she jolted awake, it was dark. She didn’t know what had woken her, but she was covered in cold sweat, her hands clammy. She had a blurry and quickly fading memory of seeing Billy’s face; she must have dreamed it. She looked around, disoriented, trying to remember why she was on the opposite end of her bed. Her eyes found her digital alarm clock, the red numbers the only real light in the pitch black room besides the vague glow from the street lights. The numbers read 10:42. She’d been asleep for over six hours.

It was strange that her mother hadn’t come in to say hello after getting home from work. She strained her ears but heard nothing. Was her mother even home yet? Enzo’s closed at ten, so she had to be. Max slid her legs over the end of her bed, padding across the room and opening her bedroom door. There were no lights on anywhere in the house. Eery. She switched on her bedroom light and walked carefully down the hall to the kitchen, turning on the kitchen light. Her mother was definitely not here.

This was unusual. Susan came back late every night, but had some semblance of a schedule. Max wondered if she should be worried. Despite the fact that yes, she probably should, she didn’t really feel any type of way about it. She still felt tired, more tired than she had before she’d napped, if that was even possible. She turned on the lamp in the living room beside the couch and sat down on it, curling her legs into herself.

Max tried to go back to sleep, figuring she’d wake up to her mother’s arrival and be able to question her about it. She half-sat, half-laid on the couch for about an hour, slightly cold in the shorts she’d worn to school. She didn’t sleep and Susan didn’t come home. Max honestly didn’t know what she was supposed to do. Her mother could not still be at work, so she had to be at some unknown third location.

The clock on the wall showed it was midnight when Max gave up on her mother coming home. She left the couch, not bothering to turn off the lamp, and headed back to her bedroom. She changed into her pajamas, brushed her teeth, and washed her face. Still no Susan. She closed her bedroom door, turned off the light, and got into bed. Nothing. Whatever.

Max’s inability to sleep on the couch continued in bed, as she had expected. Her thoughts dwelled on all the usual subjects, the usual memories. She tossed and turned in the blankets, imagined sheep running through pastures, mentally filed away all the things begging to be thought about. It worked eventually. As in, after hours. It couldn’t have been that many, though, because she never heard Susan come home.

* * *

**June 7, 1986**

Max had forgotten to set her alarm.

It was already eleven, and she was just now finishing her cereal. She’d rolled out of bed at 10:52 in a panic, scurrying to get dressed and comb her hair. She had been starving and had to eat, so she’d poured herself a bowl of corn flakes and eaten it in record time.

Now, she abandoned her bowl in the sink, eyes flickering to the note her mother had left her on the kitchen counter: _Sorry for getting home so late last night, had to stay at work later than normal. See you tonight!_

She seriously doubted that her mother had stayed at work until after three in the morning.

Still in a major rush, Max spun around and made her way to the front door, picking up her skateboard before she opened it. She locked the front door with her keys and then stowed them in the pocket of her shorts, zipping her jacket at the slightly chilly weather.

Her friends were already standing in front of Mike’s house with their bikes when she skated up to it. Of the three of them, Mike was obviously the most annoyed, from the look on his face.

“It’s, like, twenty-five minutes after eleven,” he informed her accusatorially, all three of them rolling their bikes out to the street to meet her.

“Sorry, overslept,” she said truthfully. “I forgot to set an alarm.”

“Yeah, just like you forgot you had to eat dinner with your mom,” he retorted.

“I _did_. Jesus, chill. Let’s just go to the arcade already.”

He made a face at Max but climbed on his bike. Lucas shrugged at her, like he didn’t care as much as Mike, and she rolled her eyes as if to show that she thought Mike was being dumb. In reality, she kind of got why Mike was annoyed, and wouldn’t have held it against Lucas if he had been, too.

Ten minutes later, they were entering the parking lot shared by the Palace Arcade and the video store. Pausing in front while her friends locked up their bikes, she tapped her foot on the ground, staring out at the parking lot but not actually paying attention to it. It was a warm Saturday, so unsurprisingly a handful of cars were parked throughout the lot, a few people milling around that had come from the video store or else on were their way into the arcade.

She wasn’t intently focused on any of the cars or people, so she didn’t see that one of them was looking back at her, approaching her. She was about to go into the arcade when she realized it was the same boy who had hit her with the basketball yesterday.

“Holy shit, Max Mayfield!” He called to her, coming closer.

She had not told him her name, so that was weird. She raised her eyebrows, not giving a verbal response. Her friends had finished locking up their bikes and were watching him, too.

“Funny seeing you here!” He continued, now a normal conversational distance from her. “Come to play video games since you can’t play sports?”

She crossed her arms. “Who said I can’t play sports?”

“Well, you were getting all over me about basketball yesterday, but I’m really doubting you can play yourself.”

She was terrible at basketball, admittedly, but that hardly seemed important. “Do you have something to say to me, or can I leave?”

The boy leered at her. He was not a tall nor particularly strong-looking person, so she had to admire his confidence. “Whatever,” he said, “you’re just a freak. I know who you are now.”

She still had no idea who he was. He did look familiar, but she figured it was just because he went to Hawkins High and was likely also a freshman. He had no business calling her a freak, though, and the word tugged at her insides, pissing her off a little. “Okay, you know my name is Max?” She snapped. She glanced at her friends, but they appeared as confused as her.

“Yeah, I know you. You’re Billy’s sister.”

Billy. Nobody in her grade knew Billy. She didn’t deny it but didn’t confirm it either, heart rate quickening.

“My brother used to hang around him. Tommy H,” the boy explained, laughing unnecessarily. “He was a freak too, damn. But my brother knows all about your freakish family. Is it true that you got your stepdad put in prison?”

Her heart was full on thudding in her chest now, fire surging through her. She knew people knew about that, but nobody talked it. “What the hell is your problem?” She said under her breath. She was holding onto her wrist with her other hand so hard that her fingernails were almost drawing blood. “All I did was tell you to apologize for hitting me with your basketball.”

“Seriously, go away,” Lucas said loudly.

Max would’ve thought Mike was too irritated at her for being late to come to her defense, but he also said loudly, “Yeah, don’t be a jerk.”

“She could beat the shit out of you, too,” Dustin added. Max knew he thought he was helping, but this comment only served to intensify just how pissed off she was.

The boy laughed again. “Could she? Because it sounds like she’s better at getting the shit beat out of _her_.”

Max didn’t really mean to do it.

Well, she did. She definitely did. But not quite so violently.

It was like she blinked and she was on top of him, punching his baby face with her bare fists, him trying to hold his head off the concrete and failing, it smashing down hard. He pushed her, strong enough to send her slightly off balance, and rolled himself upwards dizzily, throwing his own fists in the direction of her face. The hit to his head had plainly dazed him, and she just slapped his hands away, re-centering herself over him, punching outwards.

She struck him in the face a second time, his head hitting the concrete from about five inches up this time. Her fist found his nose, blood pouring from it at the impact, getting onto her hands. He was still attempting to fight back, but poorly. Other than his nose, he didn’t look that beat up. He deserved more.

There was yelling. Whether it was her friends or strangers or both, she didn’t know. She couldn’t concentrate on hitting this kid and the yelling at the same time. Really, she wasn’t concentrating on either thing; she had temporarily blocked out the fact that what her eyes were seeing was what she herself was doing. A dull buzzing filled her head.

She was processing that she had been punching the boy for a while, that maybe it was too much, but nobody was stopping her. If it was too far someone would stop her, wouldn’t they? His lip was bleeding. More blood on her hands. Scary. This was scary. _She_ was scary, what was she doing-

She felt hands grabbing her. Pulling her up, literally lifting her from the ground for a second. She didn’t fight them, knew she had to stop. If someone was stopping her, they must have decided it was time. She was breathing heavily, feet finding their place on the ground, the blurriness of her vision clearing up.

“ARE YOU CRAZY?” Steve was shouting at her, visibly shocked. It had been Steve that pulled her away, she realized. He still had one hand on her, like she might lunge forward again, but she didn’t.

She was too busy staring in horror at the boy on the ground, his face totally wrecked, barely conscious. _She_ had done that. He opened his mouth and she thought he might throw up, but instead he said in a barely audible voice, “Someone, call 911.”

All the air left her lungs. 911. Police. For her.

“One of you,” Steve gestured randomly in the direction of her friends, who all looked like they were in crisis mode. “One of you, go tell Robin to call 911.”

Dustin and Mike both went, literally running from the scene. Lucas stayed where he was.

Max was panicking. “I should leave,” she said wildly, tugging her arm away from Steve’s grasp. She started to back away, but Steve grabbed her arm again.

“Hell no, kid,” he said, gazing at her like he was legitimately concerned she had lost her mind. “I’m pretty sure the police are going to want you to explain why you almost killed someone.”

 _Almost killed someone_. She lowered her eyes to her hands, coated with dried blood and banged up from how hard she had been punching.

Something was wrong with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh I am very excited to be onto this story because honestly what keeps me writing is the drama.
> 
> As for a short summary of the previous story, basically Neil is abusive towards Max but eventually gets sentenced to a year in prison and divorces Max's mother. Yeah wow idk short summary but the primary important pieces. I'm sure I'll reference a lot of the smaller stuff in this story though simply because I literally finished it yesterday and it is obviously fresh in my mind.
> 
> Oh and the kid she beat up is not going to be important as a person, I personally dislike OCs so don't worry that I will insert this random kid into everything he was kinda just a plot device haha.


	2. Accusations

She was sitting down on the concrete when she heard the sirens. She had had a couple minutes to collect herself, Steve releasing her only when she swore she wouldn’t leave but seeming to understand that she was not in the mood to discuss what she had done. The boy she had beaten up was sitting now, too, and glaring at her. He looked horrible and clearly needed to see a doctor, but she honestly thought 911 was slight overkill. Maybe she was just desensitized to physical injury. He probably had a concussion, but his beat up face was nothing she hadn’t seen before.

She had just never personally been the cause of it.

Lucas was next to her, hands folded in his lap. He kept glancing at her then looking away, as if he wanted to say something but didn’t know how to begin. He probably also didn’t want to say anything in front of the boy whose face she had just smashed in. Mike and Dustin had come back outside after telling Robin to call 911 and stood with Steve on the other side of Max.

The police car and the ambulance pulled up at the same time, neither parking in a parking spot but instead close to the entrance of the arcade. More than a couple people from both the video store and the arcade had gathered to watch the scene. Max avoided looking at them, unsure how to feel about this. A small, awful part of her felt proud at how tough they must think she was. Most of her was humiliated, but she refused to make it obvious.

The paramedics went over to the boy, who immediately told them that he wasn’t going to go to the hospital with them because ambulances cost a fortune. It took everything in Max to not ask him aloud why he had made such a big deal about calling 911 if he didn’t even want to go to the hospital. She got that when he’d said that, he’d been overwhelmed by what she had done to him. It didn’t change the fact that now the police were here and walking towards her.

Well, they were walking towards all of her friends. They likely didn’t know fully what had happened, didn’t know it was her fault. She instinctively shoved her bloody hands into the pockets of her jacket.

“Can someone explain what happened here?” One of the two policemen asked. Max studied him, trying to figure out if she knew him from when the police had come to her house six months ago. It was hard to say; her memories of that day were foggy and she did not like to revisit them.

Steve moved forward, acting responsible and adult in a way Max hadn’t really seen him do before. There was usually a hint of sarcasm in everything he said, but he looked very serious now. Max supposed she couldn’t be the only one who was stressed out by police.

“There was, uh, a fight,” he said. She knew he was going to betray her so he might as well get it over with.

“I only see one injured person,” the policeman said back. His tone wasn’t challenging, but his words were by default.

Not wanting to hear Steve sell her out, Max took a breath and stood up slowly. She rubbed her hand over the opposite hand’s knuckle, capturing both policemen’s attention and exposing herself before she did so verbally. “I did it,” she admitted, voice flat and emotionless. She felt numb inside.

“You beat up this boy all by yourself?” The other policeman said it with skepticism. There it was again: her vague and terrible pride. They didn’t think she could do it, but she had.

_And you know that’s a_ bad _thing, Max, god._

“Yes,” she answered, voice still flat. “He started it. He was being a jerk. But I went a little far, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“I did.” She interlaced her fingers together, twiddling her thumbs. Figuring she had better make a better case for herself, she added, “I didn’t know I was hurting him as bad as I was. I’ve never been in a fight before.” Not one where she was doing the punching, anyway.

“You know that you could get charged with battery for this, don’t you?” the first policeman said sharply.

She didn’t know that specific word, but of course she knew what she’d done was illegal in some respect. She really shouldn’t be breaking laws, considering her mother’s custody of her was still probational. Of course this only occurred to her now, _after_ she had lost control of herself. It was during times like these when she truly despised herself.

“It’s a first offense, doesn’t that count for something?” Steve spoke up. She was shocked that he was sticking up for her. She felt like what she had done wasn’t worthy of anyone’s defense, or at least not likely to receive it. Even Susan had had a line where she didn’t defend Neil anymore. This wasn’t the same thing, but it was still bad. She realized she didn’t exactly feel remorseful, just anxious about the consequences.

“It might, but we’ll have to verify that it is indeed a first offense,” the policeman told Steve. He turned to Max, adding, “What’s your full name? We’ll have to check it with the department.”

She swallowed. “Maxine Mayfield.”

Both policemen seemed interested in this bit of information. “You look familiar to me,” the first said. “Are you positive this is a first offense?"

Well, shit. Of course with her name they might remember her. Nothing happened in Hawkins, ever. Besides the mall, but that was almost a year ago. Neil’s arrest was probably one of the more interesting things that had occurred since the mall. She nodded, not giving up any comprehension of their recognition of her. “Yes.”

One of the policemen returned to the police car, presumably to check her name with the station via their radio. The other one stood there silently. She shifted her focused to the boy and the paramedics, who were now just sitting there with him. They must have called his mother or something and now couldn’t leave until she got there. This drama all felt so overblown. Yes, she had gone too far, but she hadn’t actually killed anybody. _Don’t say that out loud or people are going to think you’re heartless_ , Max thought.

She looked away from the boy and towards her friends. Lucas stood with Mike and Dustin now. They all were extremely awkward, holding their arms in various weird positions like they didn’t know what to do with them. They all saw her looking and met her eyes, but all three of them had different, indecipherable expressions. She gave them a closed mouth smile which only Lucas returned, and halfheartedly.

The policeman was coming back now, the sound of him shutting the door of the police car drawing her attention to it. He muttered something to his partner, who muttered something else back, then said at a normal volume to her: “Our records do confirm that this is a first offense. Given the circumstances…I mean, given our records, we’re going to let you go with a warning. If this ever happens again, you’ll no longer be a first offender, so keep that in mind.”

_Given the circumstances._ They knew who she was and they felt bad for her. She wasn’t going to object to being let off with a warning, but she didn’t want it to be for that reason. It wasn’t very badass to be let off for beating the shit out of someone just because your stepdad used to beat the shit out of you.

She found herself nodding, mumbling _thank you_. After verifying that the paramedics had everything under control, the police got into their police car and drove away, leaving her to face her friends.

“Let’s go inside,” Steve said. She contemplated just straight up going home, but decided it wouldn’t help her case in the long run. Grudgingly, she followed Steve into the video store, her friends trailing behind. So much for playing Dig Dug.

The video store was not empty, multiple customers browsing the shelves. Steve walked over to the counter, where Robin was. Lowering his voice, he said, “Do you want to explain what that was about? Like holy shit, you were going to kill him.”

Max couldn’t believe that she would truly have gone that far. In the moment, she had lost a second-by-second sense of reality, but she wasn’t _crazy_. “I wasn’t going to _kill_ him,” she responded.

“Okay, you know what I mean,” Steve said. “I hear this yelling coming from outside and then it’s you just like destroying this kid.”

“He was kind of a piece of shit,” Lucas offered. It wasn’t a supremely confident statement, like he didn’t think it was a full justification, but Max appreciated it nonetheless.

“Yeah,” Dustin agreed, “he said a lot of bullshit about her family and stuff.”

“Okay but…” Steve held his hands out like he was trying to think of precisely what he wanted to communicate. “You can’t just turn criminally violent when people piss you off.”

“Wow,” Max said sarcastically, “that’s a really deep lesson right there. Did Gandhi teach you that himself?” She knew Steve was right, but admitting would be allowing for a discussion about why she had done what she did. She wished she hadn’t, but she’d rather not talk about it.

Robin, who had been observing them, said, “Let me get this straight: you beat up that kid so bad I had to call 911 and now you’re denying you went too far?”

Max sighed. “ _No_ , I said I went too far already. But calling 911 was a little overdramatic. He’s going to be fine.”

“I don’t know if calling 911 was that overdramatic,” Mike said slowly. She gave him a dirty look.

Steve ran his hands through his hair. “Look, kid,” he began, frowning at her, “I’m all for defending yourself, but that was borderline insane, don’t you think? That was like when…well, that’s not how normal people defend themselves.”

_That was like when…Billy had beat up Steve._ That’s what he was thinking. Max got it. She had been there, had watched Billy hitting Steve so hard she thought he might die, had stopped it herself. Even if she had been on Billy’s side, she understood how freaky it was. She didn’t want to understand, though, and she didn’t want them to know she understood. It was like if they knew she did, they’d feel validated in their feelings. She wanted what she had done to go away and never resurface.

“I hit him too much,” Max said stiffly. “I didn’t know what I was doing. It was a mistake, Jesus. You’re all making a big deal out of nothing.”

No one seemed to know what to say to that.

“I’m going to go play Dig Dug,” she continued, taking a step backwards. “The reason we came here, in case you guys forgot.”

Her friends all stared blankly at her, like they had forgotten.

She twisted around and started for the door, figuring they would follow her.

“Wait, Max,” Lucas called to her when as her hand closed over the door handle. She twisted back around and saw that her friends were not, in fact, following her. They still seemed to be uncertain of whether or not they should. Lucas did walk towards her now, however. “They’re probably going to call your mom. Maybe you should tell her first.”

Max bit her lip. “You mean because of her probation?”

Lucas’s eyes widened, indicating that he hadn’t even remembered that her mother’s custody was probational. “No, just in general. God, Max, do you think…”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged with a casualness she did not feel inside. “I guess I’ll go tell her. See you guys later.”

To her surprise, Mike and Dustin hurried forward to where Lucas was. “We’ll go with you,” Mike said, not exactly smiling but speaking with relative conviction, like he was extending an olive branch. Lucas and Dustin nodded.

She considered rejecting them, but decided against it. She knew she had screwed up and they were being nice. Besides, she wanted to hang out with them today. She didn’t want to go back home and be alone. “Okay, thanks,” she agreed.

She glanced at Steve before leaving the store with her friends. He was still frowning, his face a mixture of confusion and mild concern. She gave him a small wave that he returned, at least. She also waved at Robin, who smiled strangely.

Max’s mother worked at the bank on Saturdays. Max had been there a couple times, but hadn’t been in a while. It wasn’t far from the arcade and the video store, and she and her friends reached it in a few minutes. On their way there, they cracked slightly uncomfortable jokes about what Max had done that she wasn’t sure she should laugh at. She did, anyway, hoping the laughter would make this a non-issue sooner rather than later.

When they got to the bank, Max led the way to the door and pushed it open, the ice cold air inside hitting them like they were stepping into a refrigerator. Max shivered slightly, a combination of nervousness and genuine coldness.

Weirdly, Susan was nowhere to be seen at the front of the bank. As a teller, Max was pretty sure she was supposed to work right at the front. She scanned the entire room, but there was no sign of her mother.

“Are you sure she’s working today?” Dustin asked, also shivering.

“Yes, she was gone when I left this morning. And she’s worked like the last three Saturdays.”

“I guess you could ask,” Lucas suggested.

She went up to the front desk of the bank, where another woman was reading something from a binder. At the sound of their footsteps close to her, the woman looked up, smiling politely. “Can I help you?” She asked, probably wondering why a quartet of fifteen-year-olds was in the bank.

“My mother works here,” Max told her, still scanning to see if she could spot Susan. “Susan Hargrove.” Her mother should really change her last name now that she was getting a divorce.

“Oh,” the woman appeared confused. “You must be Max. But Susan isn’t working today.”

_What?_ First her mother hadn’t come home until the early hours of the morning, now she was straight up lying about going to work at all. Anxiety surged into her, catching her off guard. What if her mother had been visiting Neil? What if she was getting back together with him? The thoughts came unexpectedly and were totally unprecedented, but they momentarily overpowered her ability to speak.

“Uh, thanks for your help,” she heard Lucas saying to the woman.

They started to turn around, but Max took a breath and said, “Do you know where she is? Did she maybe tell you?”

The woman’s smile remained pasted on, but it looked slightly less authentic. “I…I think you had better ask your mother that yourself, Max. I hope you have a nice day.”

So she knew. So this was something Susan was telling her work friends about. Her work friends, but not her own daughter.

Once they were outside of the bank, the growing heat comforting after the chilliness, Max broached the subject, her desperation for reassurance outweighing her desire to appear relaxed. “Do you think she’s going to see my stepdad?”

Her friends all seemed blindsided by the question.

“Probably…not,” Dustin said, plainly considering it now that she had put the thought into his head. “Aren’t they getting divorced?”

“Yeah, but people change their minds,” she pointed out.

“Okay, but what your stepdad did to you made what you did to that kid today seem normal,” Mike objected. Max tilted her head at him, raising her eyebrows as if to say _too soon_. Besides, that wasn’t even true; only a few times had Neil hurt her as badly or worse as she had hurt the boy today. Which was kind of messed up, now that she thought about it. There was too much to for her deal with right now.

“She’s not going to get back together with your stepdad,” Lucas insisted.

Realistically, though, her friends didn’t know what they were talking about. After her parents’ divorce, Susan had dated a handful of men before settling on Neil. None of them were like Neil, but Susan had chosen Neil to marry. Max understood that her mother craved stability, and now all the pressure of her life rested on her own shoulders. It would be crazy, yes, for her mother to go back to Neil, who was literally behind bars because of his treatment of her and Max. Was it entirely out of the question? No.

“I should go home and wait for her,” Max said softly. She meant it this time. She had to know what was going on.

“Are you sure?” Lucas questioned. He looked worried.

“Yeah. I’ll call you later on my radio. Goodbye.”

Her friends echoed _goodbye_ to her as she kicked off on her skateboard, rolling out onto the edge of the street. The breeze swished through her fingers as she skated, causing her to notice how stiff her hands were. A dull pain radiated across her joints, the price of her fight which she knew she deserved.

She zoned out the whole trip home until she was suddenly stopped in front of the house. Her mother’s car was not there. She hadn’t expected it to be there, but that didn’t prevent her from being disappointed. It was like the longer her mother was gone, the stronger her fears became. Neil was in a prison not especially close to Hawkins, so it took a while to drive there. Then again, on that same train of thought, Susan visiting Neil couldn’t possibly explain her mother’s absence last night; prisons didn’t exactly have visiting hours at one in the morning.

Inside the house, Max poured herself a glass of lemonade and sat at the dining table, paging through the newspaper without reading it. She mentally played out a fictional scenario in her mind where she told her mother about her fight and her mother responded that she was getting back together with Neil. At least Max would be totally off the hook. But she would rather be grounded for an entire year than live with Neil ever again.

About an hour had passed when Max heard her mother at the door. Susan entered the house absentmindedly, blissfully unaware of Max’s presence. She was wearing a casual skirt and short-sleeved shirt; definitely not work clothes.

Max slammed her empty lemonade glass on the dining table, intentionally startling her mother. “I’m in the kitchen,” she called.

“Max, I had no idea you were home!” Guilt was written all over Susan’s face as she took a seat at the dining table across from Max. She’d obviously been counting on Max being out, because her coming home at this hour was immediately revealing of the fact that she hadn’t been working. Max already knew that, but Susan didn’t know that she did.

“I went to the bank to talk to you,” Max informed her, “but you weren’t working. So I came home to wait for you.”

Susan’s pale cheeks flushed red. “Did I say I worked today? I didn’t.”

“Yeah, clearly.” Max adjusted her position in her chair. “You lied to me about working. Just tell me where you were.”

“Oh honey, I didn’t lie, I just forgot I told you that I worked.”

“Yes, you did!” She fought to control her voice. She was overwhelmed, thinking about Neil and how vulnerable she really was to the consequences of her mother’s choices. “Just tell me: are you getting back together with Neil?”

Susan’s brown eyes grew enormous at the accusation. “Max! What would make you think-”

“Are you or aren’t you?” Max pressured. She knew her mother’s absence last night didn’t add up, that her mother’s reaction now already implied Neil had no involvement in this whatsoever. But she wanted an answer.

“No, Max, absolutely not. I will _never_ get back together with Neil.” Susan, weaker at heart than Max hoped to ever be, looked like she might cry.

Max sighed, squeezing her shaking hands together under the table. “Okay, sorry. I just wanted to know. When I saw you weren’t at work, I thought-”

“Hang on a second,” Susan said, squinting at Max. “Why did you go to my work? You never do that.”

In her stress over Neil, Max hadn’t had time to plan out how she was going to tell her mother about the fight. It seemed wrong that this conversation could go from her being upset with her mother to the inevitable other way around.

“I had something to tell you,” she said mildly, focusing on the table. “But first, you tell me where you were.” Maybe she could put this off until later.

Susan paused, like she was considering if she should listen or not. “I didn’t really think I’d have to explain it to you just yet,” she said finally. “I was going to tell you, of course, just not yet.”

This dialogue was familiar to Max. Old, but familiar. She knew where this was going.

“You’re dating again.”

“Max-”

“Who?” She lifted her head, meeting her mother’s eyes. _Who_ was really the operative question, after all. She didn’t harbor any attachment to her mother’s singleness, didn’t want her mother to get back together with her father like other children of divorced parents might. The idea of her mother dating made her sick to her stomach with stress, but not because dating was inherently bad. It was because Susan was bad at dating. If Susan wasn’t getting back together with Neil, Max wanted to make sure she hadn’t just found a new Neil to latch onto.

“You don’t know him, he works in an office and lives at the other end of town,” Susan said, face apologetic. “He’s very nice.”

“You thought Neil was nice,” Max replied. She knew it was bitchy, unnecessary, but she was frustrated. “You thought he was perfect.”

“That isn’t fair, Max,” Susan protested. It was becoming more and more likely that she might burst into tears. “You’ll like him. He would never do what Neil did.”

Max dug her fingernails into her own wrist. “Sorry if I don’t trust that you won’t marry another monster.”

“Nobody said anything about marriage-”

“Whatever, I don’t even care.” Max pushed her chair back, standing up. Maybe she was as weak as her mother, because tears were welling up in her own eyes.

“Wait, what did you want to tell me?” Susan exclaimed before Max could fully exit the kitchen.

A tear slid down Max’s cheek. She wiped it away roughly. Against her better judgment, she snapped, “I beat up this kid so bad that the police came! And they’re probably going to call you! And I hope it doesn’t affect your custody of me! But if it does, it’ll probably work out best for you, because then you can marry your new Neil and won’t have to worry about him killing me!”

Abandoning her mother, who had been rendered completely speechless by this bit of news, Max ran to her bedroom, only allowing herself to truly cry after she had slammed the door shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always include a note but I don't really know what to say haha. Ummm have a nice day....!


	3. Ghosts

Max couldn’t explain why she was so upset. True, her mother had a bad track record, had always been bad at choosing people to date, had chosen Neil. But then Susan had seen Neil’s true colors, had tried to call the police on him, had promised Max she would never get back together with him. Max had believed her, and despite her temporary loss of trust about Neil, she still did. It was highly unlikely that Susan would start dating someone exactly like Neil, that she would even marry the first person she started dating after a marriage like that. Well, highly unlikely might be a bit of a stretch, but Max did believe that if whoever Susan was dating turned out to be violent, she wouldn’t stay with him.

Regardless, Max was crying. She leaned against her bedroom door, breathing heavily, tears streaming down her cheeks. She hadn’t cried in a while. It was strange to be doing it now, reminding her of all the many times that she had leaned against this door and wept and wished she wasn’t doing just that.

“Max, honey, can we please talk?” Susan’s voice was quiet but audible through the door.

Max had pulled her knees to her chest, and now she gripped them tightly with her fingers, trying to halt her crying a little with the pressure. “I think you’ve done enough talking,” she said back, tone icy. Truthfully, she had many more questions for her mother. But she didn’t want to be the one to open the door. She wanted her mother to think she was angry, though inside anger wasn’t really what she felt at all.

“Please,” Susan pleaded. The door rocked against Max’s back; her mother was touching it.

Max sighed, removing one hand from her knee to run the sleeve of her jacket across her face. It was now slightly damp from all the tears, but her face was drier. She scooted away from the door, making a point to be slow about it. After taking a deep breath, she reached up and twisted the doorknob.

She only had to pull the door open a crack before Susan gently pushed it the rest of the way into the room. Before she could decide whether or not she should stand up, her mother sat down across from her, shutting the door again and now leaning against it herself.

“Tell me about this fight,” Susan said.

Max squinted at her mother. She looked stressed, for sure, but not like she was having a breakdown or anything. It was strange for them to have had such a heated discussion and for Max to be the more upset one. “I think I told you everything important,” she responded.

“You said the _police_ came? How badly did you beat them up? Why?” Susan seemed honestly curious, not judgmental. It figured; her mother was good at pretending that violence didn’t matter.

“I don’t know, he’ll live,” Max said. She wasn’t crying anymore, the negative memories of the fight instead triggering an obstinance in her. “He was a jerk. He talked about Neil and shit.”

Susan didn’t like when Max swore, but she was rarely bold enough to ask that Max stop and now was no exception. “So you think he deserved it?” She asked instead.

It was funny; that was the sort of question someone would ask rhetorically, to point out that violence wasn’t the answer or whatever. But Susan asked it genuinely, like she trusted Max had a reason for what she’d done. It felt nice and not nice to Max at the same time. She was honored her mother thought highly of her, but annoyed because her mother was wrong. She was not a good person, and she knew he hadn’t deserved it.

“It would take a lot for someone to deserve that,” Max answered dryly. “I screwed up. Not like I’m the only person in this family who’s screwed up before.”

“Max, you don’t even know-”

“So tell me that the person you’re dating isn’t like Neil,” Max interrupted. “Tell me that he’s sweet and a good _father_ or whatever.”

Susan appeared pained at the comment. “Well, he does have children, but he said he never gets to see them, unfortunately. He doesn’t talk about them very much.”

More potential step-siblings. Not like there would ever be another Billy. She was getting ahead of herself. There was not going to be a wedding. Probably.

“So that’s where you were last night until god knows when?” It clearly was, but Max wanted her mother to know that she knew just how late she’d been out. And judged her for it.

“He lives in Indianapolis, so I met him there. I had to drive back,” Susan said quickly, blushing.

“I thought you said he lived across town.”

Susan’s cheeks grew even redder. “He’s moving back to Hawkins, but he hasn’t fully yet. That’s why I met him, he was leaving the bank a couple weeks ago when I was going to work.”

Max was already onto the next question. “What’s his name?”

“Lonnie. His name is Lonnie. Max, I think you would like him, I told him about Neil and you and he was totally understanding-”

“What’s his last name?” Max didn’t know anyone named Lonnie. She knew there was virtually no chance that she knew the man in general, but she wanted a complete picture of who it was.

But Susan just smiled awkwardly. “I don’t know…we aren’t that close, Max.”

That was weird. It wasn’t Max being stubborn, it was a fact. “You told him about your abusive ex-husband and your daughter and he hasn’t even told you his last name? Unbelievable.” Unbelievable that Susan was dating another creep. But not really unbelievable. Fairly believable, actually.

“He just said he wanted to take things slowly, Max,” Susan rushed to explain. Her tone suggested she, too, had an inkling it was weird. But that was the thing with Max’s mother: she covered for people without them asking her to, refused to see the bad in people simply so that she didn’t have to deal with it. “When you meet him, you’ll understand.”

Max shook her head, pushing herself to her feet. She was done. “I am not meeting him,” she said simply, pulling her bedroom door open so that Susan had to scramble away from it to avoid being shoved by the door. She exited the room and walked down the hall, stopping in the living room. She had left her mother in her own bedroom, but didn’t have a plan of what to do next.

Figuring her mother would come chasing after her momentarily, she remained in the living room, staring into nothingness. After a whole two minutes passed, it became clear that Susan was not coming. Uncomfortable with the idea of her mother spending time in her room without her, Max started back to her room.

Susan was not in Max’s room anymore, but instead standing in the hall, facing a framed photo of Max, Susan, Neil, and Billy. It was the only such photo remaining in the entire house, the others having been cleared out and boxed up months ago.

Max remembered well the dark truth behind the picture. They had had it taken in California, just a few weeks before they’d moved to Hawkins. Max and Billy both had been opposed to the idea. The day before they’d had it taken, Max had said loudly at dinner that she was not going. She cringed at the memory now; she’d been so stupid back then. Neil had gotten mad at her, of course, but had gotten even madder at Billy, blaming him for putting the idea of refusing to be in the photo into Max’s head.

By this point, Max had known the way Neil treated Billy, so she had attempted to reclaim the blame for her own words, but to no avail. The dinner had ended with Neil slamming his fist on the table and Billy leaving the house. Later that night, when Billy had returned, Neil had shoved him into a wall and punched him in the stomach. The guilt Max had felt at being responsible for Billy getting beaten up was insurmountable. The following day, they had all gone and had the photo taken. Smiled for it. But Max knew that underneath the collared shirt Billy wore in the photo, there was probably a bruise from Neil’s fist.

“Things were simpler back then,” Susan said now, plainly aware of Max coming up behind her.

 _Simpler?_ There was nothing simple about the way Billy had treated Max for days after that, like she was a parasite. There was nothing simple about the terror Max had felt minutes after the photo was taken, afraid Neil would hurt Billy again when they got home.

“Simpler for you, maybe,” Max responded, bristling at the comment. “Not for me or Billy. Not that you cared.”

“It’s just a photo, Max.”

Of course her mother didn’t remember. Back when Neil only hit Billy, she always said the same thing: _it’s his child, not mine, so he chooses how he disciplines his own son_. There was no telling Neil that he went too far with Billy. No trying to call the police on Neil, back when it was only Billy.

Max rolled her eyes, stepping backwards. “It’s not just a photo.”

She twisted on her heels and headed back to the living room, all the way to the front door. “I’m going out!” She called, kicking her skateboard somewhat aggressively through the front door.

Around halfway to the Wheelers’ house, Max contemplated if she should have verified that her friends were there before fleeing her house. She had primarily left because she didn’t want to be there anymore, but she knew of nowhere else to go. It would be sort of sad to meaningfully storm out of her house only to return half an hour later.

When she was actually rolling into the cul-de-sac, she had begun to fully doubt if she even wanted to see her friends right now. The bottom line was that she had overreacted and was continuing to overreact; at least, they would probably see it that way. She had thought her mother was seeing Neil, only to be completely wrong about that. She was now in an awful mood because her mother was just dating _somebody_.

Now at the Wheelers’ house, she lingered in front of it, not sure if she should go inside. Maybe she should just go home, talk to Lucas on her radio later that night, tell him everything was fine. She didn’t even have to go home, she could go somewhere else by herself. Before she’d gotten used to having friends, she had done a lot of things by herself. Nowadays, the time she spent by herself was primarily spent in her bedroom, thinking dark thoughts.

“Max?” Someone was talking to her. Nancy. Nancy had pulled into the driveway, was now exiting her car and looking in Max’s direction.

She waved uncomfortably. There was no way around it now; she had to go inside. She skated further up the street, carrying her skateboard when she hit the grass that ran up to the basement side door. She knocked, wincing at the contact with her bruised knuckles. She’d forgotten.

The door swung open, but only Mike was on the other side of it, looking surprised by her presence. “Hi?” He said.

“Are Lucas and Dustin not here?” She searched the dark basement behind him, but saw no sign of them. She had assumed that either none of them would be here or all of them would be here. It wasn’t even three o’clock in the afternoon yet, and they always hung out later than that. Usually, she was with them.

“They went home,” Mike informed her, standing back so that she could come into the basement. She saw that the TV was on, playing commercials right now.

She felt stupid for being there if the rest of her friends had gone home. It was perfectly understandable that she’d assume they’d be together, but she felt like an idiot anyway. “I can go, I thought you’d all be hanging out,” she said. Going had been her original intention, anyway.

Mike shrugged. “It’s fine. We just didn’t feel like going back to the arcade, so we decided to all go home.”

So it was her fault they weren’t hanging out. She had ruined the day for them. It was last year all over again, with her negatively affecting their Party. “Sorry,” she said, half-joking and half-genuine.

Mike ignored the apology, instead asking, “Wait, is your mom getting back together with your stepdad?” He didn’t waste any time.

“No, she’s just dating some random guy. Not my stepdad.” She made a face, adding, “Probably.”

“She might actually be dating your stepdad?” Mike sounded horrified, misunderstanding her sarcasm. Obviously. Other people who were not her did not know what went through her mind.

She quickly shook her head. “No, definitely not. I was just kidding. I just mean hopefully the random guy isn’t Neil all over again.” She maintained the slightly sarcastic tone, hoping it made it clear that she wasn’t obsessing about this. Because she wasn’t. Not _really_.

Mike appeared confused. “There aren’t that many people out there like that, are there? Like, what are the odds?”

Max had to admit she didn’t know the odds, either. But people were often terrible. Mike’s parents might not be quite _happily_ married, but their stability would make him more unaware than even Will or Dustin of the kinds of men that were out there trying to date divorced mothers.

“I don’t know,” she answered after a moment. “But there are definitely a lot of them. It’s whatever, I don’t really care. She can do what she wants, as long as it doesn’t affect me.”

She flopped down on the couch, facing the TV. It was still on commercial. “What are you watching?” She questioned.

Mike sat down, too, picking up the bag of Doritos he must have been eating out of before she came. “MTV. I wasn’t really watching it.”

The commercials ended, the host announcing that they were going to play Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel. Max watched MTV whenever she ate dinner alone at her house, which was almost every time she ate dinner at her house in general, so she had seen the video a number of times.

Mike obviously had not. “Why is he moving like that?” Mike said, squinting at the TV. “He looks freaky.”

“It’s stop motion, idiot. You know, like in Star Wars. Pictures they turn into video.” She raised her eyebrows at him when he just shrugged in response, eating chips. “This video is good, you’re just uncultured.”

He flipped her off, refocusing on the TV. She settled into the couch, letting it go. It wasn’t like he had insulted Madonna.

They watched MTV for close to an hour, both of them kind of zoning out, sharing the bag of Doritos. Being away from her house for a while had calmed Max, brought back her sense of realism slightly. When she noticed that the clock said four o’clock, she lifted herself up resignedly.

“I should probably go home and tell my mom it’s okay she’s dating some random man,” she said to Mike, no longer faking the somewhat joking tone. Without even thinking profoundly about it, she had decided to accept the situation for now. She had friends and she barely even saw her mother; it hardly mattered who Susan was dating, as long as it didn’t go too far. “See you tomorrow, probably.”

Mike didn’t get up but nodded. “Yeah, just come here after Lucas is back from church. See you later.”

She waved, exiting the basement through the side door. The trip back to her house was more pleasant than the trip away had been. The closer to home she got, the more tense she felt, but it was manageable stress.

She didn’t even have to knock on the front door of her house. Susan opened it before she had climbed all the steps. “Max! You came back!”

“Yeah, I was thinking about joining the circus, but decided not to,” she replied, causing a smile to flicker across her mother’s face. Though it had been a joke, she had meant it to be at the expense of her mother, not for her.

Susan ushered her into the house, chewing on her thumb nail. “I got a call while you were gone,” she said immediately after she’d shut the door.

Max understood. “The police?”

Susan nodded. “They didn’t say anything about your custody, honey, so that’s okay. Just about the fight.”

Maybe Max had not been explicit enough in her description of the fight. Maybe the gory details were why Susan looked so nervous. “What’s wrong?” She didn’t bother to beat around the bush.

“They just said stuff about, well, new research, and troubled youth, and…”

“Troubled youth?” Max snorted. “Like, me?”

“Oh, honey, not like that,” Susan said quietly, uncomfortably. “Just about new research on abused children and fighting and-”

“Hate to burst your bubble, but their research is bullshit,” Max said sharply. “This had nothing to do with that.” Not true. The very reason she had done what she did was because of what the boy had said about Neil.

“Okay, I’m sorry.” Susan frowned. She sounded anxious. Max hated when her mother was anxious because of her. “I wish things weren’t like this, Max.”

Max didn’t fully know what that meant. Like what? Life wasn’t good, but it had been worse. Then again, maybe for her mother, it hadn’t been worse. “You mean, you wish things were the way they were a year ago. You wish he were back here.”

“No, honey, that’s not what I said.” Even more anxiety in her voice that time.

Max walked further into the house, towards the hall. “You wish things were simpler,” she said flatly, referencing what her mother had said about the photo.

Susan didn’t respond. Max kept moving into the hall, to the photo. She lifted it off the hook that it hung on, hands surprisingly steady, and went back to the living room with it.

At the sight of Max holding the picture, Susan rushed forward. “Max, put that back, it’s just a photo.” Max caught the desperation in her voice.

“Neil _hit_ Billy over this picture,” Max said, her own voice shaking. “It wasn’t simpler then, Mom, even if it’s fucked up now-”

“Max, please put it back, this has nothing to do-”

“It will _always_ have to do with _everything_!” Max shouted, her rigid calamity crumbling.

Susan reached for the photo, hands closing lightly over the edges of the frame. Max, thinking her mother already had hold of it, slackened her grip. Neither of them supporting it adequately, it toppled to the wood floor in between them, shattering.

They both stared down at the broken frame, shocked. Max felt like her heart had been stabbed. She didn’t like the picture, despised the memories attached to it. But it had always seemed right that it hung in their house. Emptying the house of Neil’s existence had largely emptied the remains of Billy’s existence too, by nature of the fact that most of Billy’s stuff not connected to Neil had been trashed by Neil himself before his arrest.

She crouched down, flipping the frame around, careful to avoid cutting herself with the broken glass. At least the photo remained intact.

“I’m sorry, Max,” Susan whispered, also crouching down. “You’re right, it wasn’t easy for you back then, either.” She gently extracted the photo from the now open front of the picture frame, holding it up. “This means nothing, okay?”

And then she ripped it. Straight down the middle, dividing her and Max onto one side and Neil and Billy onto the other.

Max gasped. She snatched both halves of the photo from Susan, barely knowing what she was doing.

“Max-”

“Fuck you!” Max choked out, flinging the torn photo to the ground hopelessly and standing up. “Go to hell.”

She kicked the pile of broken glass, flinging sharp pieces of glass every which way. Susan jumped out of the way, one shard of glass whizzing close enough to her arm to scratch it. “I know you’re upset, but you can’t do that!” Susan exclaimed, rubbing her arm where the glass had scratched her.

Max rolled her eyes emphatically, swallowing so her voice was clear before she spoke. “I’m not upset,” she said. “I don’t care what you do anymore.”

For the second time that day, she stormed into her bedroom, slamming the door so hard that the wall rattled. This time, she did not cry. She balled her hands into fists, punching her mattress repeatedly until she accidentally struck the wood bed frame, recoiling in pain. It left her exhausted, no adrenaline left to run on.

She fell onto her bed, shoes still on her feet. Here she was again: alone in her room, tired. Every day, every single day, she found herself here. Not always at four-thirty, not always because something had happened, but every day. She was sick of it. She _hated_ it.

She clamped her eyes shut, wondering if she could sleep the afternoon away like she had yesterday. But too much was in her head, just like at night when she could never sleep.

She got off her bed and opened her door a crack, peeking out. Susan had left the hall, likely to go to the kitchen. Max moved soundlessly out of her room and further down the hall. She eased open the door to Billy’s room, slipping inside.

The room was not the same as it had been when Billy was alive. The bed remained, but the drawers were empty and most of his stuff was gone. The posters had been left up, though, and they gave Max a sense of comfort that didn’t really make sense given that she hadn’t felt it when their owner was alive.

She fell onto Billy’s bed now, head away from the wall. She studied the posters that she could read from where she was lying, mentally reciting their words from memory. She closed her eyes, willing her mind to shut up.

It worked, unlike in her own room. Focusing on reciting the text of the posters over and over again in her head, she dozed off, her frantic mind eventually giving way to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was somehow very dramatic in certain ways and boring in others haha. I wanted another chapter to kind of show where Max is at emotionally I guess? Sorry for so much Susan and not much of her friends. I prefer them too obviously!
> 
> The plan for this story is to have like a few chapters situated around a few days, then time skip a little bit, repeat, etc. So don't worry, it's not going to be dragging on like day by day. I think it's more realistic that way?
> 
> As for Lonnie, I struggled to decide who her mother was dating but that fit into what I wanted for the story! It is _definitely_ not the main focus of the plot, just a side piece. I want Will brought more into the story.


	4. Bad Choices

**June 13, 1986**

Freshman year was over. Max’s backpack was stuffed with loose papers and items from her cleaned out locker, weighing her down as she shoved through the hordes of people also leaving the end-of-year assembly. Her friends were somewhere in the pack, but she had momentarily lost them in the rush. They were all in a hurry; Jonathan was driving Will and Eleven up that afternoon.

Finally outside in the baking sun, Max waited for her friends, who evidently hadn’t been as pushy as her. They unlocked their bikes as always, but it struck her that it was the last time they’d be doing any of this for three months. It was the last time they’d ever do anything as freshmen. She couldn’t help but feel a little nostalgic. It felt like yesterday that they were all eighth graders.

“Let’s go,” she pressured them, her skateboard already on the ground. “El said they’d be there at one. That’s in fifteen minutes.” The last day had been a short day.

“Cars aren’t machines, they’re not going to be there _right_ at one,” Dustin said, his voice trailing off when he realized how stupid what he’d said was. “Okay, cars are machines, but _Jonathan_ isn’t a machine-”

“Let’s go!” Max interrupted him, clapping her hands together.

Bikes unlocked, they all pushed forward, succeeding in beating most people out of the school parking lot. Then again, a lot of people were hanging around, hugging and stuff. Max did not feel that nostalgic.

Jonathan’s car was not in front of the Wheelers’ house when they got there, so they had beat it as intended. According to Dustin’s watch, it was two minutes until one, so they abandoned their bikes and Max’s skateboard in the garage and stayed outside, sitting on the curb at the edge of the Wheelers’ lawn. Max leaned against the mailbox, eyes focused down the street for any sign of Jonathan’s car.

It was one minute after one o’clock when the LTD turned the corner and became visible to them in the cul-de-sac. They all jumped up, running to the driveway. Jonathan stopped his car in the middle of the driveway, Will and Eleven both getting out before the engine was even off.

Eleven hugged Mike first, but then immediately went to Max. Will and El hadn’t visited since spring break, which felt like forever ago. Max squeezed El tightly, more excited than she had been in quite some time. She released El to her other friends, hugging Will when it was her turn.

Jonathan said hello to them before disappearing in the direction of the Wheelers’ front door, obviously to see Nancy. Graduation had been held over a week ago and Nancy had been out of school since, so she was inside, probably just as excited to see Jonathan as Max’s friends were to see each other. Maybe even more excited…happy screams and all that.

“This is going to be the best summer,” Dustin declared. _It doesn’t have to be that great to be better than last summer_ , Max thought privately.

“Why, because you’re going to see Suzie next week?” Will asked, laughing.

“Not _just_ that. But also that.”

They gathered their backpacks and went around the house to the basement, as always. Once they’d settled there, there was a lot to talk about. For ages, they did nothing but talk, topics ranging from summer to what they should do to Will’s school to Max beating up that kid. For the first time since it happened, Max laughed about it without regret. She laughed easily about everything as they talked. She was happy.

They all had dinner at the Wheelers’ that night, the table so crowded that Max’s chair was nearly touching Lucas’s and Dustin’s chairs on either side of her. She was glad that after dinner they decided to watch a movie in the basement rather than going home. El was staying with her, and as excited as she was about their sleepover, she dreaded bringing her friend home to a dark, empty house. She’d rather go home late and whisper with El in the dark than spend the entire evening in her depressing house.

They were watching _Back to the Future_ , since El had not gotten to see it with them last summer. Max remembered going to see it with her friends, in that period where things were nice. Billy had been getting better by then, but hadn’t yet been taken over by the Mind Flayer. It was just a movie, but the familiar scenes and dialogue got under her skin for some reason. The further into the movie they got, the more she tuned it out, watching the screen with her eyes glazed over. The happiness she’d felt so strongly earlier was fading. Of course, happiness was always fleeting, but she had wanted badly to hang onto it this time.

It was after 9:30 when the credits came onto the screen, the music alerting Max to the ending.

“You guys should probably go home,” Mike said grudgingly, turning off the TV. “Let’s meet at, like, ten tomorrow morning.”

They all nodded, getting up. Max waited while El hugged Mike again, sharing a look with Lucas. He said bye to her, going upstairs with Dustin. Lucas and Dustin were biking home, but Jonathan had already said he would drive Max and El to Max’s house. When El was done talking to Mike, she and Max went upstairs, too, both of them waving to Mike and Will.

Verifying that she had her backpack and skateboard, Max followed Jonathan and El outside of the Wheeler house and to his car, which was still parked in the same spot on the driveway. El took the front seat next to Jonathan and she got in the backseat behind El.

She verbally directed Jonathan to her house without hardly thinking about it, the path ingrained into her mind from skating it nearly every day for over a year and a half. She’d always liked car rides in the dark, and this one was no different. Jonathan’s music wasn’t too different from the music that Billy used to listen to, though he didn’t play it quite as loud. A strange twinge of jealousy ran through her, seeing El next to Jonathan from her position in the backseat. It was totally stupid, considering Hopper had literally died and that was the only reason El was now sort of Jonathan’s brother. But it must be nice to have Jonathan as a brother.

Not a single light was on in her house when Jonathan slowed his car in front of it. Of course, because Susan wasn’t even off work yet. But there was a difference between going home to the darkness by herself and being dropped off to it by someone else, with someone else. She was embarrassed.

“Is nobody home?” Jonathan asked curiously, immediately killing the possibility that it wasn’t obvious.

“My mom had to work late tonight,” Max explained awkwardly, pronouncing the word tonight very distinctly. Like it wasn’t an all-the-time thing. Which it was.

Jonathan seemed to understand, at least. “Night shifts suck,” he said, clearly having personal experience with them. “When will she be back?”

Her mother had been on time every night in the last week, fortunately. “Just after ten,” Max told him, hoping that was enough for him. He didn’t seem worried or anything, just interested.

He didn’t say anything more about it, telling them goodnight and waiting for El to unload her suitcase from the back of his car. He didn’t drive away until Max had opened the front door with her keys and she and El had gone inside the house.

Max hurried forward, turning on multiple lights so the house wasn’t completely pitch black. She led El to her bedroom, also quickly turning that light on and then shutting the door, blocking out the emptiness.

“How often does she work?” El asked, taking off her shoes and sitting on the bed.

Max understood that El meant _how often does she work this late?_ “Almost every night,” she admitted, sitting next to El. “Kind of does suck. But hey, we have the house to ourselves.” She smiled, wanting to have fun and not discuss anything negative.

El glanced at Max’s clock: 9:56. “Four minutes,” she said.

Max shrugged. “More like fifteen. So what can we do in fifteen minutes that we can’t do when my mom’s here?”

“I don’t know,” El said, mirroring Max’s smile but plainly a bit confused.

An idea occurred to Max. “My mom’s room. I bet she has a ton of stuff in there. Let’s go see.” She was already off the bed, opening her door. She and El half-ran to the end of the hall, where the master bedroom was. Max pushed open the door slowly and switched the light on, bathing the room in light.

Max never went in her mother’s room. She could whenever she wanted, really; there was nothing special about tonight, except that El was here. Normally, she couldn’t care less about anything to do with her mother. But doing risky things was practically the point of sleepovers, and the mild rush Max got from sneaking into her mother’s room just minutes before Susan came home was worth it.

She went ahead of El, heading to her mother’s closet. Everyone kept secret stuff in their closets. Max didn’t want to find anything too secret, or anything of Neil’s. But she remembered that once as a child she’d found a box in her mother’s closet full of old college photos, and that had been fun to search through. Assuming Susan had brought it when they’d moved to California, it would probably be in the closet.

El stood at the closet door. She seemed nervous, but not opposed to what they were doing. Max stood on her tiptoes, scanning the top rack of the closet. Jackpot: she saw a box that looked how she remembered the other one had looked. She eased it off the shelf with the tips of her fingers until it was close enough to the edge that she could grab it. Holding it tightly under her arm, she left the closet quickly, tugging Max by the hand out of her mother’s bedroom.

When they were safely back in Max’s room, the box on the floor in front of them, they burst out into giggles at the success of their mission. Giggling with El felt as nice as laughing with the Party earlier.

“What is that?” El asked about the box now. Max appreciated that El had celebrated their victory without even understanding what it was.

“ _This_ ,” Max said dramatically, “is full of photos of my mom being absolutely insane. I swear it’s entertaining.” She had a vague memory of a photo of her mother drinking straight out of a bottle of wine.

She lifted the lid, revealing many envelopes of photos from various film-developing locations. She picked up one of the envelopes, but before she opened it she noticed that the date wasn’t right; her mother had gone to college from 1963 to 1967, but the date handwritten on the enveloped was _10/12/77_. The handwriting wasn’t her mother’s, either.

Getting a bad feeling, she wondered if she should even look at these pictures. But El was watching expectantly, so she went ahead and raised the flap of the envelope, sticking her hand inside and pulling out the pile of photos.

Immediately, she knew they did not belong to her mother. They were all of Billy; Billy with a woman who had to be his own mother, Billy with a backpack on his first day of school. Though a part of her was drawn to them, wanted to look at each and every photo in the entire box, she shoved the entire pile of photos back into the envelope and dropped the envelope back into the box.

“Wrong box,” she said nervously, looking up at Eleven to see if she’d noticed.

She had. “Billy,” El said softly, laying a hand on Max’s arm.

Max nodded, not bothering to deny it. “Yeah. Billy. But forget about these, okay? Let’s do something else.” She placed the lid back on the box forcefully, sliding it under her bed until she could no longer see it.

The sound of keys jangling elsewhere in the house startled both El and Max. Susan was home. Max slid the box a bit further under her bed for good measure, smiling secretively at El despite the box now being a dark point in this day.

Susan’s footsteps got louder as she approached Max’s bedroom door, finally knocking and then opening it. She smiled when she saw them both there. “El, it’s so nice to see you! Did you have a good day?” She moved her eyes to Max. “Did you have a good last day of school, honey?”

They both confirmed that yes, it had been a good day. Taking the hint of the abruptness, Susan said goodnight and shut the door.

Max yawned. “Tired?” El questioned her.

Always. Max was not only physically tired but emotionally drained. The photos of Billy had been the last straw. “Are you tired?” She asked, knowing it was unlikely that any reasonable fifteen-year-old girl besides herself was tired at barely ten o’clock.

But El nodded, whether because she was actually tired or for Max’s sake, Max didn’t know. “Tired. We can go to bed.”

If she were a better friend, she might have stayed up anyway. Especially because she doubted that she would even sleep right away, so there was little point in forcing El to go to bed so early. But as much as she loved El, she didn’t want to talk anymore.

El opened her suitcase and got out pajamas while Max left the room and crossed the hall to the bathroom. She splashed cold water on her face, brushed her teeth, and looked in the mirror. She looked kind of bad; there were grey circles under her eyes and her skin was even paler than usual. Turning away from the mirror, she went back to her room and changed into her own pajamas. Once she and El were both ready for bed, she turned off the light and they climbed into her bed.

Usually when El slept over at Max’s house, they whispered in the dark for almost an hour, but tonight Max just adjusted her pillow and whispered, “Night, El.”

“Night, Max.”

The room was quiet for a long time. Max did her best to lay still, trying not to disrupt Eleven. Eventually El’s breathing grew louder, El clearly having fallen asleep. Max shifted how she was laying and held her eyes shut, matching El’s breathing like it might lull her into sleep of her own.

She felt sick, the photos truly having ruined a really good day. It was her fault for breaking into her mother’s closet; she always had to do stupid and unnecessary things. She and El should’ve just stayed in her room and played board games.

The number on the clock kept increasing, both slowly and quickly at the same time. 11:13, 11:47, 12:52, 2:20, 4:38, 5:59, 7:36, 8:19, 9:12.

Max never fell asleep.

* * *

**June 14, 1986**

“Are you okay?”

It was evening. Max and her friends were scattered across the grass at the top of the hill, next to Cerebro. They had eaten dinner early at the Wheelers, and then Dustin had talked them into going with him to reach Suzie, who, as always, was not being particularly responsive.

All day, Max had fought to stay awake. The sun hadn’t set yet, and it had been hurting Max’s eyes, so she’d shut them. Now, when she opened them, Lucas was looking at her curiously.

“What? Yeah, the sun is just blinding me.” She lifted an arm to shade her eyes.

“It’s barely sunny anymore,” Lucas said, squinting at her. “You look so tired.”

She shrugged nonchalantly. “Maybe El and I stayed up super late.”

“El doesn’t seem tired.”

“Yeah, we went to bed at like ten,” she laughed, not bothering to maintain such a flimsy excuse. She rubbed her eyes, attempting to lessen how much they hurt from sleeplessness. “I just couldn’t sleep.”

“Do you ever sleep?” Lucas sounded more serious than her, lowering his voice so it couldn’t be heard by the rest of their friends.

Max twisted a loose hair from her ponytail around her finger. “I’m pretty sure I would be dead if I didn’t sleep,” she said sarcastically.

“The circles under your eyes are literally black,” Lucas pushed, not backing down.

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Is that so?”

Lucas sighed, lowering his voice even more. “Come on, Max, I’m serious. You’ve looked terrible all day.” Seeing the look on her face, he hastened to add, “Okay, not _terrible_ , I mean, just…tired. Did you sleep at all?”

The question made her uncomfortable. Her inability to sleep was embarrassing. It was too real. Last year, she’d had to get used to her friends worrying about her because she was in genuine physical danger. Now, the only danger was imagined by her own mind. That kind of danger was impossible to explain without sounding crazy. She did not want anyone to think she was crazy.

“I don’t know,” she said. “It was, um, loud.

“You don’t _know_ if you slept?”

She heard Dustin in the background, talking into Cerebro. For the first time since they’d gotten to the hill, she wished she was involved in that instead of this conversation. “Maybe not last night,” she admitted, “but of course I usually sleep. Or are the circles under my eyes _always_ ‘literally black?’” She made quotation marks with her fingers, smirking when Lucas blushed.

He ignored her comment, though. “Why didn’t you?” He pressed.

“I said it was loud.”

“What was loud?”

“You know, the radio. El can’t sleep unless the radio’s on.” Not true. She felt guilty for throwing El under the bus, particularly because this lie was very easily exposable.

“Do you even have a radio in your room?”

No, she did not. “Why would I say the radio kept me awake if I didn’t have a radio, idiot?” She responded. She rubbed her eyes again.

“Uh, because you’re lying?” He said it like _duh_. “Friends don’t lie, Max.”

He just had to remind her of the rule she incessantly broke.

“Precisely why I’m not lying-”

“ _So_ , El, what music do you listen to on the radio?” Lucas asked loudly, loud enough for all of their friends to spin their heads towards Max and Lucas. Max gave him an extremely dirty look, officially irritated.

El, on the other side of Cerebro with Mike, frowned in confusion. “Music? I don’t know. Just music.”

Lucas gave Max an intent stare before saying to El, “So, like, what music did you and Max listen to last night?”

Max appreciated that all of her friends seemed to think Lucas was crazy. She did not appreciate that El replied, “We didn’t.”

Max opened her mouth, frustrated but not sure what to say. Lucas continued to stare at her. “Come on, just tell me why you’re not sleeping.” He lowered his voice back to its previous quiet volume when he said it, but all of their friends were focusing on them now.

 _“Seriously?”_ She was angry. She knew it would be more prudent to remain calm and act like the whole thing wasn’t a big deal to her, but she felt exposed and was pissed at Lucas for making her feel that way. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I’m just asking!” Lucas was clueless. He didn’t get why she was so mad. Hell, she didn’t fully get why she was so mad. But she was.

“It’s none of your business!”

“Friends don’t-”

“-lie? You’re going to use that right now, really?”

Dustin, still holding onto the talking piece for Cerebro, interrupted them. “Can you guys shut up, I’m trying to reach Suzie!”

Max stood up, crossing her arms over her chest. “We all know she’s not going to pick up,” she snapped at Dustin. She felt bad as soon as she said it. Dustin frowned, obviously somewhat hurt. “Sorry, I’m just pissed at Lucas,” she quickly added.

Lucas stood up, too, so that he was standing in front of her. “I didn’t even do anything, you’re overreacting.”

“Maybe you should mind your own business,” she said icily. She knew it was unfair. She didn’t want Lucas to always mind his own business. She loved her friends because their group shared everything. She was just personally bad at the sharing part.

“I’m literally your boyfriend,” Lucas responded. His voice was a weird mix of hurt, confusion, and irritation.

“Yeah?” Her head was spinning. She didn’t want all of her friends to be watching this. She didn’t want it to be happening at all. But it was, and she was angry, and a terrible part of her wanted to make Lucas pay for whatever he’d done to her. “How about you’re _not_ anymore?”

_“What?”_

“Yeah, how about I just broke up with you? Do you understand now?” She regretted the words as soon as she said them, but was too proud to take them back. She dug her toe into the grass, arms crossed so tightly she thought she might cut off the circulation in them.

Lucas’s eyes widened. She was sure all of her friends had similar expressions, but she refused to look at them. She removed her toe from the grass, turning a full one-hundred-eighty degrees and marching towards the edge of the top of the hill. Without looking back, she began the trek down the hill. She thought she might have heard someone calling to her from the top, but she pretended she didn’t, quickening her pace.

Halfway down the hill, she tripped, tumbling multiple feet downwards before she managed to catch herself. Trying not to become overwhelmed by the grass stains on her new white shorts and the scrapes on her elbows, she got up and continued walking, though a bit slower now.

She had left her skateboard at the Wheelers’ house. She didn’t bother going back for it, not wanting to meet anyone. The sun was starting to set now, and she was growing cold, having also left her jacket at the Wheelers’. Wholeheartedly miserable, she forced her feet forward, not stopping until almost thirty minutes later when she finally arrived at her house.

Her mother wasn’t home. It was Saturday night, and Susan did not work Saturday nights, so she had to be out with _Lonnie_. She’d probably assumed Max and Eleven wouldn’t come home until late and wouldn’t notice. That had been the plan until Max had screwed it up.

Max unlocked the front door and went inside, slamming it behind her. Neil used to get on her case for slamming it, so fuck that. She’d slam it every time she shut it if she wanted to.

She went to the kitchen, searching for any kind of a note from her mother. Success: there was a note on the kitchen counter, reading _Went out, might be out very late! Don’t wait up for me!_ Though the fact that her mother was on another date pissed her off even more by default, she was kind of glad she had the house to herself right now.

She sat down in one of the dining chairs, burying her face in her hands and screaming. Her hands largely muffled the scream, so she screamed again. She didn’t know if she was more upset at Lucas or herself. Last September, she and Lucas had talked deeply about how she shouldn’t break up with him every time she was mad at him. She hadn’t done it since then. She was so _stupid_.

Max kicked her feet against the table legs, the distraction of the dull pain relieving. She wanted to undo what she had done, but it seemed too complicated and difficult. She rose from the chair and headed to the fridge to get a Coke. She needed the caffeine.

Before she could grab the Coke, her eyes hovered over an unopened bottle of wine next to the Coke in the door of the fridge. Not really thinking, she grabbed it instead, removing it from the fridge to stare at it.

 _Don’t wait up._ Her mother wasn’t going to come home until very late, if at all.

It wasn’t the worst idea in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot wait to write the next chapter oh my god
> 
> But first I have to write a five page history paper due tomorrow morning good lord ~~kill me~~ wish me luck!!!!!!!
> 
> That's why I posted this earlier than usual haha time to go suffer yay me


	5. Drunk

Max knew she was being impulsive. She knew she was being stupid. That was part of why she was doing this at all, wasn’t it? She was stupid and she made stupid choices and she might as well go all the way.

She struggled to open the bottle of wine, digging around in the kitchen drawers for the bottle opener she knew her mother kept. She had watched her mother open a bottle of wine before, but never with extreme interest. Gripping the bottle in one hand, she attempted to dig the corkscrew into the cork top, missing and accidentally scraping it against her arm. Shaking her arm in pain, she adjusted her grip on the bottle and jabbed the corkscrew at the cork again, this time succeeding in breaking through it. She twisted the top of the apparatus until the corkscrew was lodged sufficiently into the cork, and pulled. It didn’t budge. She tried again, this time pulling up on the arms of the bottle opener. After she jiggled it back and forth a number of times, the cork finally came loose, leaving her with the open wine bottle.

Max didn’t really know how much she was supposed to drink. She didn’t want to die or anything. She didn’t know what she was doing or why. She just wanted to feel something. Figuring she would know when she should stop, she got a plastic cup from one of the kitchen cabinets and filled it with wine. It was hard to control her pouring, and she almost spilled wine all over the counter. Fortunately, she managed to pull the bottle back just in time.

Leaving the open bottle on the counter, Max took the cup over to the dining table. She tilted the cup and took a giant swallow of wine. It was more bitter than she expected, but not bad-tasting. She wasn’t totally new to wine; at the few holidays she’d spent with her dad after her parents’ divorce, he’d given her a small glass. It had been a while, though.

It was difficult to drink a lot of the wine all at once. She drank about a fourth of the cup in a minute’s time, but had to pause, slightly nauseated. She felt nothing so far, which made sense; if she remembered anything from the few times Billy had talked about the parties he went to, you had to have a lot of wine to get drunk. Hard alcohol was the most effective. Billy liked beer, which Max found disgusting.

Taking a breath, Max went for the cup again, drinking in big gulps. The wine was cold and her head hurt slightly from chugging it. She wondered if she was making a mistake. No, she knew she was making a mistake. She wondered how _big_ of a mistake she was making.

In another few minutes, the cup was empty. Max thought she might feel a tingle in her hands, but she also might be imagining it. At this point, she was committed to going all the way. Not necessarily too far, but far enough. She got up from her chair and returned to the counter, pouring another cup full of wine. Her stomach turned mildly at the prospect of drinking another whole cup of it, but there was no way around it.

By the time Max had drunk three-quarters of her second cup, the effects were definitely coming on. There was no longer any way she was imagining her hands tingling. When she moved them, they felt light, like the space between the atoms in her body was greater than before. That was a weird thought. Now that she thought about it, her thoughts were all kind of weird. That is, those that she had. Her mind had gone largely blank. She ceased caring about how weird her thoughts were or how blank her mind was because it was easier to let the blankness take over. It felt nice.

For good measure, she finished off the cup, dropping it vaguely onto the table. It fell over, no liquid weight to hold it down, and she fumbled to catch it, failing miserably. A few drops of wine were visible on the floor beside the cup. She jumped up and went to get a paper towel to clean it up. Immediately, the light feeling intensified, spreading throughout her body. She moved airily, fingers holding loosely onto a paper towel, legs now wavering as she crouched down to clean up the spilled wine.

If this was what it felt like to be drunk, she got why people did it.

 _Shit_ , she was drunk. She’d meant to do this, hadn’t she? But she couldn’t undo being drunk. She didn’t want to. Did she? She was impaired. _Impaired_ , that’s what they said about drunk drivers, right? Lucas had told her that. Lucas. The reason she’d done this. Right? Wasn’t that why? She’d broken up with him. She’d screwed up. She was good at that. Why hadn’t she told him she’d screwed up? She was dumb. She _needed_ him. Not needed him, she didn’t _need_ anyone, but she didn’t want to be broken up…

She paced back and forth across the kitchen, ignoring how dizzy it was making her. She needed a plan but her mind wasn’t working. The alcohol, of course. The blankness was no longer as nice as it was frustrating. Why wouldn’t her mind just _think_?

She should call him. No, she shouldn’t; she was drunk. Would he know? He might. She might sound weird.

“I’m Max Mayfield,” she said out loud, to test her voice. It didn’t sound totally off. Maybe a little bit. Phones hid how your voice sounded somewhat. Maybe if she weren’t drunk, she would know it was dumb. But she was, and maybe this was how it was supposed to be: not thinking.

She took slow steps towards the phone in between the living room and the kitchen. She lifted the receiver but didn’t dial immediately, struggling to recall the Sinclairs’ phone number. No, wait–Lucas was probably at the Wheelers’. Or maybe they were still on the hill. Hills didn’t have phone numbers. But they had radios. Not hills, hills didn’t have radios. Her friends had radios.

She hung up the phone sloppily, now walking more briskly to her bedroom. Her movement was unsteady, but she didn’t trip or anything. Well, she didn’t trip until she entered her room and her feet slammed into Eleven’s suitcase in the middle of her bedroom floor. _Eleven_. She was supposed to be sleeping here. Max had abandoned her, too. All the more reason to talk to Lucas.

Taking her radio off her bedside table, Max pulled the antenna outwards and felt for the button. She pressed down, then released it. What was she going to say? She was sorry. No, too forward. She had made a bad choice and was willing to take Lucas back. _Willing_. No, too bitchy. She’d figure it out as she went. She pressed down again.

“Lucas? Do you come in?”

 _Do you read? Do you copy?_ Not do you come in. Off to a great start. Oh well.

“Max!” Lucas’s response was close to instant. He was probably waiting to hear from her. She pictured him sitting on the couch in Mike’s basement, holding his radio. Or Mike’s radio. It was probably Mike’s radio. They were all on the same channels.

“Max?”

Oh, yeah. “Lucas! I had to…I had something to say. To you. Over.”

“You sound weird. Are you okay? Over.”

Always that question. “Yes,” she said, emphasizing the word. “I had to say something. Over.”

“Okay, what did you have to say?” She detected the hopefulness in his voice. He didn’t say _over_ , was he done talking? Probably.

“I’m sorry.” No, not what she was supposed to say. Too forward. It had just come out. “You told them, you were loud. I didn’t mean everything. Over.” Better to put a little blame back onto him. Was she even making sense?

“What?” Yeah, she definitely wasn’t making sense. “You’re…sorry? Uh, me too. Over.”

She needed to end this before it became obvious that something was off about her. “Good, then. Bye… Over.” Even she heard the slur on “bye.”

Lucas did too, evidently. “Holy shit, are you drunk?”

Again, no _over_. She barely noticed. She heard herself laughing nervously, very much unlike herself. “Why would I even be that?” She said. More slurring. God, her head was fading more. She’d thought she was at the peak, but the feel of the radio was growing distant from her hand. “How would I even-”

“Holy shit,” Lucas said again, cutting over her. “What did you drink? Where did you-” he paused, static disappearing. Then the static returned for a second, enough for him to say, “Wait one second.”

Max fell backwards on her bed, almost letting go of her radio. She moved her eyes around the room. Everything looked distorted, like she was watching through a movie screen. She kept blinking and realizing she’d forgotten what had happened seconds earlier. She almost forgot she was waiting for Lucas, but the radio in her hand reminded her.

After a period of time she did not know the length of, static came through the radio, paired with vague sounds of people talking, maybe arguing. Then Mike’s voice became audible, saying, “Max, did you drink, like, beer, or like vodka? You know, like, liquor, like-”

She laughed, her whole chest shaking from the uncontrolledness of it. “You mean, hard alcohol?”

“Yeah, did you drink that, or-”

She continued laughing. “I did not say that I drank anything, _Mike_ , Jesus. _Over_. Isn’t that your favorite word?”

“God, you’re seriously drunk.”

There was the sound of more arguing and static in the background. She hoisted herself up so that she was sitting, the rapid movement dizzying. She didn’t know what she was doing, if she’d had a plan before she’d come into her bedroom to call Lucas. Had she been meaning to call someone? No, she’d had the phone to call Lucas, who she’d decided to radio instead…

“Max, are you at your house?” Lucas again.

Her house. Yes, she was at her house. Of course she was at her house. She was in her bedroom.

“Yeah, I’m at my house,” she said. “But I probably shouldn’t ride my skateboard there, like probably not a good idea.” More laughing.

“You left your skateboard here. But that’s not why I was-”

“You’re right, that sucks.” She sounded like an idiot, she was pretty sure. People always did when they were drunk. Wasn’t she going to say bye before? “I’m going to go now, over and out.”

“No, don’t-”

She slammed the antenna down into the radio so it was off. She’d done it so hard that it hurt her hand, but the feeling was so disconnected it hardly mattered. She wandered out of her bedroom. The radio was no longer in her hand. She must have set it down. The kitchen light was on. There was a cup on the floor. Her cup; she hadn’t picked it up. She was holding it now; she’d picked it up. She put it in the dishwasher.

The wine bottle. It was still on the counter, open. _Open_. Oh, god, her mother was going to know. It was closed before, she thought. Yes, she’d used the corkscrew. Why hadn’t she considered that her mother would know if she opened the bottle? She picked up the cork, lying next to the bottle, and attempted to ram it back into place. It wouldn’t go. She pushed harder, pushing the bottle over.

 _Crash_.

Broken glass. Wine all over the floor. It looked like blood. Shit. _Shit_. It was messy, she had to clean it up. Her mother was going to see the mess. Her mother was going to know the bottle was gone. Her mother was going to know the bottle was gone if it was broken on the floor. She got a paper towel and dropped it onto the spilled wine. There was too much.

She pressed down– _ow_ , holy shit. She was bleeding, _holy shit_ she was bleeding. She covered the cut with another paper towel, pressing down. Was it a bad cut? She couldn’t tell. It didn’t hurt terribly, but there was blood. She pressed harder onto it.

Broken glass. Broken wine bottle. Her mother.

“Steve!”

She was standing in front of the phone, one hand holding the receiver, her bleeding hand gripping the paper towel. She had decided to call Steve because he would have wine in his house. He could bring her a bottle. She could replace it. Would he know she was drunk? She was already making the call. She was already speaking.

“Steve, I have to ask you a favor!”

“Max? Is something wrong with your voice? Are you, like, crying?”

“Crying? No, I don’t cry, what the hell. I mean, sometimes, not most times. I mean, no, I’m not-”

“Holy shit, are you drunk?”

She’d heard that before. “ _No_ , I just-”

“Where are you? Where did you get alcohol?” Steve’s tone was no-nonsense.

She realized she was planning on asking him for a replacement bottle of wine. It was going to be obvious. “Okay, okay, I had a little, but I need you to _help_ me with something.”

“Do you need me to pick you up?”

She was at her house. “No, no, I’m at my house! I need you to bring me…um…wine, yeah, just one bottle, I know, I know it sounds weird, it’s because I took one, and it broke, and anyway a lot of it’s gone, but my mom is going to know, yeah, she’s going to know, so if you could just drop off a bottle, that would be so nice, I know it’s _weird_ …”

“Max, I’m not bringing you wine.” The definiteness of his tone was frustrating. This was all she had to do. She’d fixed Lucas, she needed to fix the wine bottle. Had she fixed Lucas? She’d hung up on him. Maybe she hadn’t fixed it. She fucked up _everything_ , she was holding the phone, she was bleeding, she was lightheaded.

“Please,” she pleaded, the vowels running together. “It’s glass, and it’s on the _floor_ , just bring something-”

“Okay, okay, calm down. Shit. Okay, Max, I’ll bring you a wine bottle. Okay? I’ll be there in ten minutes. Don’t do anything. Don’t touch the glass.”

“Yeah, it _cuts_ , I know.” She rolled her eyes though he couldn’t see her. Then she processed the first part of what he’d said. “Thank you! I’ll see you…”

She dropped the phone. She’d meant to hang it up. She grabbed for it and hung it up this time. She probably should’ve said bye.

Her hand was still bleeding. She stumbled down the hall to the bathroom. She fumbled for the light switch but couldn’t find it. She gave up. She felt for the sink handle and turned it on, water pouring out of it. She put her bleeding hand under the water, wincing at how much it stung. That probably meant it was good for the cut. But it stung. She pulled her hand away from the water, shaking it off. More blood was appearing. Maybe she should bandage it or something.

The medicine cabinet was open. She was searching it for a box of Band-Aids. Would that be enough? She knocked over a bottle and withdrew her hand instinctively, knocking more bottles over. She was making a mess of things. First the wine bottle, now medicine bottles. This was overwhelming. Emotion was growing within her chest, an overload of indescribable feelings. She sat down on the toilet, put her hands to her eyes. Withdrew them. She’d gotten blood on her face. Gross.

She stumbled back out of the bathroom, back down the hall. She bumped into the wall as she turned the corner, rubbing her arm where she’d felt the impact. In the kitchen, the pieces of the wine bottle were still on the floor. Maybe Steve would help her clean up the mess. It was her mess and she should clean it up. But she was tired. Exhausted, actually. She thought she might cry because of how tired she was. Her eyes hurt. Her head hurt.

Knocking. Had it been ten minutes already? Her eyes swiveled to the clock: 9:33. She didn’t know what time it had been when she’d finished calling Steve. She ripped a fresh paper towel off the roll, balling it into her bloody hand. Then she took careful steps to the front door, where the knocking continued. Using her non-bloody left hand, she opened the door. Steve stood on the porch, holding a bottle of wine. It didn’t look the same as the one she had drunk, but it would have to do. She didn’t tell him to come in, but he did anyway without being asked. She shut the door, the slamming noise hurting her ears.

“Of course you have wine in your house,” she said, laughing and reaching for the bottle. Steve pulled it away.

“For my _parents_ ,” he responded. She raised her eyebrows at him. “Okay, sure, I’ve gotten drunk before. But not alone in my house when I was fifteen.”

She rolled her eyes again because this time he could see it. “So you’re saying this is _sad_ ,” she retorted. “I just needed the _wine_ , you can go home.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so.” Steve looked past her, into the house. She followed his gaze. The living room was dark, but the kitchen was flooded with light, some of the broken glass on the floor visible from where they were standing. “How much did you drink, Max?”

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. She didn’t remember how much of the bottle had been empty. “Two…cups. I don’t think it was _that_ much. I dropped it.”

She gestured vaguely at the kitchen with her right hand. Steve frowned at the paper towel, which was stained with red. “Did you cut yourself?”

“The glass,” she said absently. Steve rubbed his hand over his chin, looking stressed. He set the wine bottle on the coffee table and reached for her hand, the bloody paper towel falling to the ground. She saw the slice at the base of her palm, felt the sharpness of the pain that radiated from it, but didn’t feel fully in tune with the fact that what she saw belonged to her.

She was walking, being led by Steve down the hall, to the bathroom. She’d been in here a couple minutes ago. The water. She stood in front of the sink, feeling the sting of the water again, Steve having turned on the sink.

“It hurts,” she objected, jerking her hand away. “I’m tired.” She blinked her eyes. It was becoming increasingly difficult to keep them open.

She was sitting on the toilet. Steve had pushed her down onto it. “You can’t sleep,” he said. He sounded extremely worried, which was unnecessary. She was fine, just tired. She hadn’t slept. Last night felt like seven hundred million years ago. She tried to tell him this, but it was too much effort. She wanted to sleep.

“Stay awake, Max,” he kept saying. She fought to not shut her eyes. She felt more pain in her hand; Steve was doing something to it. Wrapping it in some kind of white bandage. She wondered where he’d found it; she had looked through the cabinet before.

He must have finished. Her hand hurt slightly less. She continued blinking at him. The world was like a staticky television set.

“Come on,” he was saying, pulling her arm so she’d stand up. She did, but unhappily. She didn’t know why she couldn’t just sleep. They went back to the kitchen, where the broken wine bottle was. She saw it again on the floor. How long ago had it been that she’d broken it?

Steve was crouched on the kitchen floor, cleaning up the broken glass. He picked up each piece of glass cautiously, like she should have done. She watched him, realizing how relieved she was that that obstacle had been overcome. Her mother never had to know about this.

“Steve,” she said, forcing the words to come out, “thank you. I didn’t want my mom to know that I did this.” She gestured wildly around her as if to indicate that _this_ meant everything, almost losing balance on her chair.

“Mind telling me why, exactly, you did this?” Steve asked. He was about done mopping up the wine with paper towels, and turned to face her. “Aren’t you supposed to be hanging out with your friends?”

“I _fucked_ it up,” she admitted. “It was _Lucas_. I mean, it was me, but it was him, too.” She wasn’t being clear. She couldn’t think straight. “I broke up with Lucas. Then…I came here.”

“God, why would you break up with Lucas?”

“I don’t know.” She truly couldn’t quite remember why she had done it. Then she remembered their discussion about her sleep. “He said, he said I looked tired. Which was bullshit, so I was mad-”

“Hate to break it to you, but you do look tired.” Steve was sitting across from her now. She hadn’t noticed him move.

“I _am_ , but like, he was talking, and I didn’t…like it, and I’m tired because I didn’t sleep but he said that and I was upset that he did…” It had been hard for her to talk just a moment ago, but now it was hard to filter what she was saying. She hadn’t slept, she couldn’t sleep. Insomnia. Dreams. She wasn’t supposed to talk about that stuff. It was private.

Steve squinted his eyes at her. “You didn’t sleep? Is that why you’re so tired?”

“What, did you think I was _dying_ , I _said_ I was tired-”

“Why didn’t you sleep? Because of Lucas? I swear, someday you’re going to look back at this shit and realize your priorities were out of whack.”

“No, not Lucas, _Jesus_. I don’t sleep because I don’t _sleep_ , okay? And that’s all I’m going to _say_ so mind your own business, god.” She scowled at him. She felt like she should be nicer. He’d cleaned up the floor for her.

“Hey, I was just asking,” Steve said defensively, holding up his hands.

“Everyone is always asking,” Max responded. She was feeling overwhelmed again. She reached her hands up to tighten her ponytail and felt the bandage against her hair. She kept forgetting things that had just happened. She was done with this, done with being drunk. She wanted it to go away. “I bet I could sleep right now,” she said, “so I think I will. Then this _shit_ will all be gone. You can go, okay?”

She allowed her eyes to close. It was relieving.

“Uh, no, I’m not leaving you alone while you’re drunk as a fucking sailor. Come on, I’ll drive you to Mike’s house.” Steve stood up.

“No,” she protested, opening her eyes. If Mrs. Wheeler saw her like this, her mother would definitely find out. “I’m staying here.”

Steve was reaching for her arm. She flinched away instinctively, holding her hands up in defense. Steve’s face loomed in front of her, concern written all over it again.

“I’m not going to hit you, kid,” he said slowly. “You just have to go to Mike’s.”

She relaxed her hands but shook her head. “For god’s sake, I said no.”

Whatever Steve was going to say to this was cut off by the ringing of the doorbell. The repeated ringing of the doorbell. Max whirled around, nausea filling her at how quickly she’d spun. She saw Steve walking towards the door. He looked through the peep hole and then opened it.

Jonathan, Lucas, and Will were in the doorway. She jumped up, legs shaking under her as she rushed to the front door.

“Max,” Lucas said first, staring at her. “Are you okay?”

Always that goddamn question. “Will you stop asking me that?” She exclaimed, immediately regretting the fierceness with which she’d said it. “Sorry, Lucas, I’m fine, though.” Each word was separated from the others; she was trying to speak without slurring.

“I was just going to drive her to the Wheelers,” Steve informed Jonathan, who was looking at Max in horror. “You should definitely take her with you.”

Max didn’t bother to argue. It was too hard. She just wanted to go to bed. Steve and Jonathan were talking more, but she tuned it out. There was a heavy pounding in her head. Her headache had intensified.

She was outside. Lucas was walking next to her. The headlights of Jonathan’s car blinded her, startling her back into awareness of her surroundings. She climbed into the front seat, not considering that Will probably got the front seat by default. Nobody said anything about it.

Jonathan pulled on the gear shift, the car rolling forward. As it picked up speed, her stomach lurched uncomfortably. She willed herself not to be sick, squeezing her eyes tightly together. Once she got used to it, the motion of the car was comforting. She laid her head against the cold car window. She probably shouldn’t fall asleep in Jonathan’s car.

She probably shouldn’t.

She was.

She did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly I started to feel drunk from writing this chapter in Max's POV even though I was just drinking lemonade.
> 
> In order to write about Max opening the wine bottle I watched an entire YouTube tutorial on how to use a corkscrew and that's how committed I am to this story


	6. Revelations

**June 15, 1986**

Max was in the Wheelers’ basement. She laid on the floor, a pile of pillows beside her; she must have been sleeping on them and fallen off. Her head hurt slightly, memories of why flooding into it. Wine. She’d gotten drunk. She’d broken up with Lucas, before. But then she’d called him? She thought she had. Steve had been at her house. And now she was here. She didn’t really know why she was here. She thought it had something to do with Will.

She pushed herself up, looking around. Brown hair was visible inside the pillow fort at the edge of the basement: Eleven. Eleven, who was supposed to be sleeping at _her_ house. What was wrong with her?

She circled her eyes around to the couch, where Will was sleeping. Or had been sleeping. His eyes were open, and he was looking at her. She smiled, embarrassed that he had seen her drunk. She must have been a mess.

“Good morning,” she whispered sheepishly. She became aware of the fact that her headache was stemming largely from her ponytail, which was still fastened tightly to her scalp. She reached up and tugged out the scrunchie, hair barely moving from ponytail form. She ran her fingers through it, somewhat matted red hair now cascading over her shoulders.

“‘Morning, Max,” Will whispered back. He sat up on the couch. “Do you feel hungover?”

She didn’t feel good, that was for sure. But she didn’t feel like she was going to die, either. She shrugged. “Not that much. Maybe I wasn’t that drunk.”

They both laughed, covering their mouths to muffle the sound so they didn’t wake up El.

“How did I get here?” Max asked. “Did Mrs. Wheeler freak out?” She was pretty sure she had objected to going to Mike’s for that very reason, last night.

Will shook his head. “We didn’t tell her. We just took you to the basement. Don’t you remember?”

She struggled to recall the precise events of the previous night that had led her to being in the basement. She couldn’t. Until that point, she had decent guesses about what had happened, but her guesses grew less and less clear as she tried to remember later and later in the night. “No, just…a car? You were there, right?”

“Yeah, we made Jonathan come and pick you up. And you fell asleep in his car. But then when we got here, you woke up a little and we went through the side of the basement and brought you pillows and you just like fell asleep like you were dead.”

Yeah, none of that was ringing a bell. “I must have looked so stupid,” Max said.

Will shook his head again. “No, it was kind of scary, you were like a zombie. Why did you do it?”

She didn’t fully know the answer to that question. If it had been any of her other friends asking, she probably wouldn’t have even tried to answer it and would have instead given a sarcastic response, but Will asked so genuinely. “I don’t know,” she admitted, frowning thoughtfully. “I broke up with Lucas, so I was mad. At myself…? I guess. I saw the bottle of wine and it was something to do. It was a distraction.”

“Oh. Do you regret it? Getting drunk?”

Another good question. “I think so. I don’t feel any better now.” That didn’t sound right. “I mean, I feel fine…but not better because I got drunk.”

Will nodded. “I think whenever people think alcohol will fix their problems, it only makes them worse.” When she looked at him curiously, he added, “My dad used to drink. He was never nice, but it made him worse.”

Max had known this about Will’s dad, vaguely. Lucas had explained it to her, a long time ago. She’d always figured Joyce was so nice to her mother because she understood what it was like to have a shitty husband. But Max had never heard Will talk about it himself. “What was he like when he drank?” She asked. She wondered if he was like Neil.

As if reading her mind, Will responded, “Not as bad as your stepdad. But he was mean. And he said awful things. Jonathan used to fight with him, and I was always scared he’d hit him.”

Max felt herself tense up. “Did he?”

“Not really. Maybe a few times.” Will was focused in her direction, but not exactly on her. She was doing the same; looking at him without really seeing him, both of them thinking hard.

“At least when I was drunk, the only person I hurt was myself,” Max joked, holding up her bandaged right hand. “Better than last week, when I _wasn’t_ drunk.”

Will smiled at her joke. “Were you scared? When you were fighting that kid?”

“He barely even touched me,” Max said, envisioning the way the boy had tried to punch her and how she’d slapped his hands away. “I wasn’t scared of him at all. Guess I’m a badass?”

“But were you scared?” He stared at her intently. He hadn’t been asking if she was scared of getting hit, she realized.

She lowered her gaze to her lap, swallowing. “Maybe. Yeah. I know we all told you about it like it was just a cool story, or whatever, but it wasn’t. I felt like…a monster.”

“I hurt people, too,” Will said, causing her to raise her head in surprise. “When the Mind Flayer possessed me, I was, like, a spy. I know it’s not the same, but I know what it feels like.”

She sighed. She appreciated him trying to make her feel better, but it was definitely not the same. “You didn’t mean to,” she said softly. “But I was me. So, I meant to. Who knows if bad people want to be bad people? They just are.”

“You’re not a bad person!” Will exclaimed, immediately glancing at Eleven to see if he’d awakened her. She was still sleeping. “Max, you’re not.”

She didn’t know why she’d said it at all. She didn’t _really_ think she was a bad person. But she was worried that she was becoming one. There was a difference, but only a slight one. “I know,” she relented. It would be too hard to explain to Will, if she even wanted to. “I was just making a point. Hey, did Lucas believe me last night when I said I was sorry? Does he still think we’re broken up?”

Will allowed for the change of subject without objection. “I think he believed you. But I’m sure he’d want to hear it again from you now that you’re not…you know.”

“Drunk out of my mind?”

They both laughed again. It was comforting. She barely noticed anymore how gross she felt. She directed her attention to the clock on the wall of the basement. It was almost ten o’clock in the morning. She had slept for almost twelve hours. It was also late enough that Lucas’s family was probably back from church, or close to it.

“I bet Lucas is home now,” she said, standing up. Her headache was stronger with her standing, but tolerable. She had experienced much worse in her lifetime. “If Mrs. Wheeler doesn’t know I’m here, I shouldn’t go upstairs anyway. I think I’ll go over to his house.” She gestured with her head towards the basement door, and reached for her shoes, which were a couple feet from all the pillows.

“Wait, Max,” Will said, before she started actually walking to the door. “Was what Lucas said true? That you don’t sleep?”

She felt a familiar tug of nervousness at the question, but Will wasn’t asking in a pressuring way, like he thought she was going to lie. So she didn’t lie. “Sometimes. But it’s okay.”

“I used to have nightmares and stuff after the mall,” Will told her. “I didn’t want to go to sleep for like two months. Is it like that?”

The mall. It was almost a year ago, but yet they would all have it ingrained in their minds forever. She, too, had had nightmares about the Mind Flayer, killing Billy, coming for Eleven. But not in a while. She shook her head. “Not the mall. Other stuff. Not always nightmares. Usually I lay there and I want to sleep but I just can’t.”

“Oh. You know you can talk about it with us, right?”

She clasped her hands together, picking at her bandage. “Friends don’t lie? I’ve been told, once or twice or eight thousand times.”

Will shrugged. “It’s still true. Anyway, good luck with Lucas.”

She waved, disappearing through the basement door. It was still a bit chilly outside, and she shivered in the t-shirt and shorts she’d worn the day before. Patches of sunlight were scattered over the road, however, and it was warmer in those. She half-jogged past the front of the Wheeler house on the way to the Sinclairs’. She was relieved to see Mr. Sinclair’s car in the driveway, meaning they were home.

Max attempted to smooth her hair before knocking. It was a hopeless feat; her hair was so tangled she couldn’t get her fingers all the way through it. She gave up and tapped light knocks on the door with her left hand. She was right-handed, so it seemed off, but she couldn’t exactly knock with her bandaged hand.

There was no answer at the door, so she knocked more loudly. Confidence won battles.

Shuffling; someone was coming. She saw a shape at the window: Erica. But instead of opening the door, Erica vanished as quickly as she’d come. About twenty seconds later, the door was finally opened by Lucas.

“Max!” He beckoned her inside. They both glanced around for Lucas’s parents; he wasn’t technically supposed to have Max in his room alone, but they did it all the time anyway.

When they were both safely in his bedroom, he shut the door, sitting down on his bed. She sat down on the other end, facing him.

“I know I said I was sorry last night, but-”

“-you were under the influence of wine?” Lucas grinned at the look on her face. “I know. I believed you anyway.”

“Good.” She chewed her lip, running her fingers over the softness of his comforter. “So we aren’t broken up anymore?”

Lucas’s grin morphed into a more serious but still friendly expression. “Not if you don’t want to be, but…” He tapped his index finger on his opposite wrist: his own nervous habit. “Max, you said you weren’t going to do that anymore. Break up with me over every little thing. I don’t want to go back to that.”

“I don’t either!” She hastened to assure him, feeling her cheeks grow warm. “It was a mistake. I was mad at you. And I shouldn’t have even been, like Jesus, I was an idiot. Kind of been a theme lately.” She risked a smile, which Lucas returned.

“We’re all idiots sometimes,” Lucas assured her. She knew she was the most idiotic of all of them lately, but she didn’t say it; that wouldn’t be too good for her image of extreme self-confidence. “Most of us don’t chug wine, though.”

“Who said I chugged it?”

“You were drunk, like, forty minutes after you left! You had to have chugged it.”

“Fine, I did chug it.” She scooted closer to him. “Look,” she continued, “sometimes I get overwhelmed. Lately. It’s like, there’s this machine in my head that’s making thoughts faster than I can think them. And then I do things without even thinking, because I don’t know _what_ I’m thinking. I know it sounds crazy. But I’m not crazy. It’s hard to sleep because they never go away. I’m sorry for getting so mad at you.”

He tilted his head at her. “You should’ve said something before. Of course you’re not crazy. Remember what Will was like when you met us? There was all that stuff in his head, too.”

“Yes, the Mind Flayer.”

“Okay fine, but there’s nothing wrong with you,” Lucas said insistently.

She looked at him hard. She felt so distant from everything lately, like a far more mild version of when she’d been drunk. But right now, she felt close to him, enough so that she refused to let herself dwell on the thoughts flickering around in her head. “There might be,” she said vaguely, holding eye contact with him, “but I’m definitely still perfect.” She squinted her eyes, smiling slightly.

“Yeahhhh, definitely.” Lucas laughed. He leaned forward uncertainly, and she closed the gap between them, kissing him before quickly pulling away.

For a brief but wonderful (wine-free) moment, her thoughts slowed down.

* * *

**June 22, 1986**

Max rolled Eleven’s suitcase behind her, intentionally dragging it along at a snail’s pace to prolong the time that El was here even by a few minutes. Jonathan’s car was parked in front of her house, he and Will already having packed up their stuff and left the Wheelers’.

El and Max had spent the morning making tightly braided friendship bracelets from a kit Max’s grandmother had given her in the eighth grade. They now wore them tied around their ankles, visible because they both were wearing shorts in the sweltering weather. El walked behind Max, arms loaded with everything she couldn’t fit into her suitcase.

Will and Jonathan both stood outside of the car; Jonathan to help load El’s suitcase into the trunk and Will to say goodbye to Max. Max was extremely sad that they had to leave, even though they’d be back in a couple weeks. She was happy that it was summer and they were coming up to Hawkins a handful of times that had already been planned, but that didn’t mean it didn’t suck that they couldn’t stay the entire summer.

Max handed El’s suitcase over to Jonathan, thanking him when he took it from her. He’d treated her differently ever since he’d picked her up when she was drunk; he’d been nicer, but not in a fake way. She turned to Will and El, both waiting to say bye.

“This is sucky,” Max said, making a face. She could tell her friends were sad, too. “At least you’re coming back in, like, a week and a half.”

El frowned at this. Max understood why. If she thought about it at all, it also made her frown. “Happy Fourth,” Max added sarcastically.

“Hey, at least there’s the fireworks,” Will offered. “And no more Mind Flayer.”

Hopefully. This time last year, they had all still been blissfully unaware of what was coming. There was still time. Max thought depressing things.

“Where’s your mom?” El asked, looking past Max, towards the house. Susan was home, but had disappeared to her bedroom almost an hour ago and hadn’t left since.

Max sighed. “I think she’s getting ready. For her dumb boyfriend.”

El knew that Max’s mother was dating someone. They hadn’t had a lengthy conversation about it, but they had cracked somewhat disrespectful jokes about Susan’s mystery man at one o’clock in the morning a few nights ago. “Oh,” El said, wrinkling her nose.

“Your mom is dating someone?” Will asked. Max hadn’t broadcast it to all her friends, but she thought most of them knew at this point. Will must have been missed in that exchange of information.

“Yeah, I don’t know anything about him,” she said. “He’s moving to Hawkins or something. He has a weird name.” _Lonnie_. Max did not like saying it.

“Old men always have weird names,” Will pointed out. Max raised her eyebrows, so he clarified, “Like, adult men, or whatever. My dad does, too.”

“My dad’s name isn’t that weird. Sam,” Max said, shrugging. “I guess Neil is kind of weird.”

“My dad’s name is _Lonnie_ ,” Will said, bugging his eyes like he was revealing something supremely ridiculous.

He was, but not in the way he thought he was.

Max’s jaw almost dropped, but she clenched her teeth together, fighting to maintain a normal look on her face. Should she say something?

She couldn’t. She didn’t know what to say. Had she told El her mother’s boyfriend’s name? No, El wasn’t reacting.

“That sounds like Bonnie,” Max joked, her own voice echoing in her ears. She was impressed that she was able to come up with a joke at all.

A minute ago, she hadn’t wanted her friends to ever leave. Now, she was ready for them to go.

She spun her head to the trunk, which Jonathan had now finished arranging. It was shut. Jonathan swung his car keys in his hand. “I guess you guys have to go now,” she said, hating herself for being relieved.

“Sorry, guys,” Jonathan said to all of them, moving around the back of the car to the driver’s side. “Time to go.”

Max hugged Eleven tightly, reminding herself that she’d see her again in just ten days. It wasn’t like during the school year, when they’d gone months without seeing each other. Max was glad her mother did not complain about the long distance phone call charges she knew she was solely responsible for.

Pulling away from El, she hugged Will, too, and then stepped back to the curb. “See you soon!” She called as they piled into Jonathan’s LTD. It started and idled for a second, then rolled forward. She waved to the car until she could no longer see it, then headed into her house, still processing what she had learned.

 _Her mother could not be dating the same Lonnie_. The odds of it were so unlikely. But then, the odds of it being a different Lonnie? Well, they seemed even slimmer. She didn’t think it was a common name. Will himself had said it was weird. And Susan had said that Lonnie never saw his children; that part certainly fit. The statistical odds of her mother meeting and dating Will’s father were so small, but not _nonzero_. Joyce had married Will’s dad, so he had to be somewhat smooth. If Neil was any example, Susan was very much into those kind of men.

“Mom!” Max shouted, tearing through the house to the master bedroom. She had not been inside since she and El had stolen the box of pictures of Billy (she hadn’t even returned it; it was still underneath her bed). Now, she knocked aggressively on the door until her hand hit air and her mother was standing in front of her.

Susan looked nice. Her makeup was done, and she was even wearing red lipstick. Max was taken aback, but ignored her desire to comment on it. She had more pressing matters to attend to.

“Lonnie is Will’s father,” she said flatly, not bothering to think of what might be the best way to communicate this fact to her mother. Susan, who lived her life in shades of grey, understood things best when they were presented to her in black and white. “Will told me about him. He used to get drunk and fight with his family. You have to break up with him.”

Susan did not respond immediately. She just stared at Max, as if she wasn’t positive that Max was even really in front of her. “…What?” She questioned finally. “I think you must have mixed something up, honey, there is no way-”

“He said his dad’s name is Lonnie,” Max pushed. “How many people are named Lonnie? You have to break up with him!”

“I’m guessing there are two people in the world named Lonnie?” Susan was frowning. “This is insane, Max, he’s just about to come and now you’re telling me he’s your friend’s dad?”

About to come? Max had assumed her mother was meeting Lonnie somewhere. She glanced around wildly, keyed up and now far more anxious. “He’s coming here?”

Susan nodded. “He’s picking me up, but I thought it would be nice if you met him. Just briefly.”

Oh god. There was no way that was happening. “Did you hear what I said about Will’s dad?” Max protested wildly. “I can’t meet him. _You_ can’t meet him, Mom.”

“Max, can’t you just do what I say for _once_? You broke my _expensive_ wine bottle last week and I didn’t even ground you. Can’t you do this for me?”

Max’s mother had noticed that the wine bottle Steve had brought was different from the one Max had drunk. She’d lied and said she accidentally shattered the other bottle. Considering Max had never gotten drunk in her life, Susan bought the story and hadn’t even punished Max. Max felt mildly guilty at her mother pointing this out; she _was_ kind of a bad daughter. But this was no longer about meeting whoever her mother was dating. This was about knowing that he was Will’s father. Probably. She couldn’t do it.

“No,” she said in the same flat tone she’d used a minute ago. “Definitely not.” She took a step back, away from her mother. “Ask him. When you’re on your amazing date, ask him about his kids. Prove I’m wrong about them. Then I’ll meet him.” She didn’t want to meet him even if he was actually Mr. Rogers. But if she said that, her mother might actually listen to her.

Not waiting for her mother to respond, she ran to her room, shutting the door quickly behind her. She felt like she was running away from a horde of Demodogs, trying to get away before _Lonnie_ showed up.

She hadn’t snuck out in months. She hadn’t needed to. Her mother was always gone, affording her the opportunity to walk right out her own front door. And Susan never disciplined her for anything, so she could always just straight up leave even when her mother _was_ home.

Now, running away from her mother’s mysterious boyfriend, she felt like she was running away from Neil all over again.

She undid the latch on her window and jerked it upwards, not bothering to be as quiet about it as she used to be. She slid her legs out of the window one by one, hands clinging to the structure still conveniently placed below her window, and jumped. Her feet hit the grass, already propelling her forward. She crept around the house, verifying that no car had pulled up in front of it. She had left her skateboard at the base of the porch yesterday, and now she seized it and carried it to the street, dropping it down and kicking off.

About halfway down the street, a car passed her. Probably Lonnie. Fortunately, she was moving fast enough in the opposite direction that whoever was in the car definitely didn’t notice or at least care about her presence.

When she’d turned the corner, she lowered her foot to slow herself, halting.

Heart thumping in her chest, she caught her breath, hands damp with sweat.

She hadn’t even met her mother’s boyfriend yet and she already was afraid of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like this was the most filler-y chapter I've done so far in this story I think, just some ends that should be tied up and then the beginning of the Lonnie reveal??!
> 
> WHY WAS IT HARD FOR ME TO HAVE THEM KISS IDK LIKE IT'S DIFFICULT FOR ME
> 
> BTW I will not be posting tomorrow most likely, I will be back on Thursday!! I think I need a break to reinvigorate my passion haha one day legit does worlds for me and gets me excited again.
> 
> Next chapter is July 4, time for some more sadness....


	7. Firecrackers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I HAD NO FREAKING IDEA HOW LONG THIS CHAPTER WAS UNTIL I SELECTED IT ALL AND WAS LIKE OH MY GOD IT IS 8,776 WORDS IDEK HOW THAT HAPPENED

**July 4, 1986**

It was supposed to be a good day, but it was also supposed to be a terrible one. Max hadn’t figured out yet how it was supposed to be both.

She sat on the Wheelers’ kitchen counter, her feet dangling a foot and a half above the floor. She balanced a plate in her lap, eating a sandwich. Her friends were scattered around the kitchen, also eating sandwiches. They rarely spent time here, but Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler had taken Holly to a children’s parade for the Fourth of July so the house was empty. Jonathan and Nancy were god know’s where.

It was around two o’clock already. Max was amazed that the beginning of the day had gone so quickly considering how weird she felt. She and Eleven had gotten up extremely late. Max didn’t know when Eleven had actually woken up, because she had been awake for hours before she said anything to El about getting up. She thought it was probably the same for El.

It was strange; Max thought about Billy every day. She knew her thoughts about him were obsessive, sometimes unnecessary, and usually she made efforts to curtail them. Today, she couldn’t curtail them. She couldn’t because she _couldn’t_. If she tried, she would fail. Billy was everywhere, in everything she saw, more real to her than her real friends that were in the same room as her. And she couldn’t because she didn’t want to. Thoughts about Billy weren’t something to push away, not today. Not ever, probably, if she were a better person. But today especially, it was his day. So what if she was hanging out with her friends, going to the carnival with them, watching fireworks with them? So what if she used to love fireworks and the Fourth of July? Billy would never get to see them again. Every thought she had about him was the most alive thing about him.

That was why Max didn’t know how today was going to go.

“Do you think they’re still going to have any left?” Mike was saying. Max didn’t quite snap out of her daze, but she adjusted her awareness. He must be talking about fireworks, because they were going to go buy some after they finished eating lunch.

“They did last year,” Will pointed out.

Last year. The fireworks that had fought the Mind Flayer. Max had told Lucas not to steal them.

She was unconsciously staring at Will, a completely flat look on her face. He caught her staring and said, “Sorry.” She wasn’t sure what he was sorry for. Mentioning last year? It was weirder that they weren’t.

Max finished her sandwich and set her plate next to her on the counter, letting her legs go slack now that they didn’t have to support the plate. The edge of the counter dug into her skin. Talking over whichever of her friend’s was talking (she wasn’t entirely sure who), she said, “We should go soon or they might really sell out.” She didn’t know why she said it. She wasn’t dying to go to the store or anything. It was just something to say. If she said nothing for too long, it would be weird. And even though she had every reason to be weird, even though her friends would fully understand if she was weird, she was trying not to be.

Eleven, who was sitting on the counter opposite Max, jumped down, her Converse thudding on the tile floor. “Wash my hands,” she said, as if explaining why she had gotten off the counter. Though she talked quieter than the others, they all focused on her as she spoke. She walked out of the kitchen, presumably to the bathroom. There was a sink in the kitchen, so she obviously was not just going to was her hands.

Max also jumped down. “I should, too. There’s mayonnaise on my hand.” She curled her fingers inwards so it would be less clear that there was no mayonnaise on her hand. Her friends didn’t question it.

The door to the first floor bathroom was cracked open slightly. Max heard the water running before she gently pushed the door inwards and saw it for herself. El turned her head to face Max, the corners of her mouth lifting slightly in a vague smile.

“Are _you_ okay?” Max asked. For some reason, talking to Eleven had made her mildly anxious all day. They had both lost someone a year ago, but El’s loss was so much bigger, so much more significant. Max didn’t know how to talk to El about it, but she didn’t want to avoid it.

El nodded, drying her hands on the towel that hung against the wall. “Today will be fun,” she said. It was evident that she was uncertain, but she sounded equally determined. “Joyce said, Hop wouldn’t want sadness.”

“Yeah,” Max agreed. Hopper wouldn’t have wanted El to be sad. She wondered if Billy would have wanted her to be sad. It was such a foreign question she had truly no idea. No, he wouldn’t have specifically wanted her to be sad. He would have assumed she wouldn’t be. At least when he died, he knew she was. Was that better? She was getting lost in her own thoughts again.

“Are you okay?” Eleven now asked Max.

Max felt immediate guilt at thinking about Billy when they should be talking about Hopper. She was a terrible friend. Her losing Billy was nothing compared to El losing Hopper. She bit down on her lip, nodding maybe too enthusiastically. “Your dad died,” she said softly, hoping it was okay to say that. “Don’t worry about me, okay?”

El appeared genuinely confused. “But Billy,” she protested. “I know you’re sad about Billy.”

 _I know you’re sad about Billy._ The simplicity of the statement filled Max with emotion she did not want to feel. “Billy wasn’t Hopper,” she replied. Her guilt was only intensifying at the conversation now being about this. She had promised herself she wouldn’t talk about it with El. It wasn’t fair. “It’s okay, seriously.”

The expression on El’s face was now understanding rather than confused. “Max, you can be sad, too. Billy was your brother.”

Max didn’t respond for a moment, pursing her lips uncertainly. Finally, she said, “Mrs. Byers said Hopper wouldn’t have wanted you to be sad, right? So let’s not be. Let’s have fun today.” It wasn’t really an answer to what El had said, but it was the best she could do. If El was going to work hard to be happy, she had no business not doing the same.

Not even bothering to wash her hands like she’d claimed her reason for going to the bathroom was, Max held out her hand to El, pulling her out of the bathroom and back down the hall. In the kitchen, their friends had all finished eating. They all turned to face Max and Eleven when they entered the kitchen.

“Are you guys ready to go?” Mike asked, frowning slightly. He was probably worried about El, that she was sad. His face relaxed slightly when El nodded beside Max.

“Ready,” El said, speaking for her and Max both. They all left the kitchen, heading to the door into the garage, where their bikes were stowed. Max had brought her bike instead of her skateboard today so that she and El could go back to her house after they bought fireworks. They rolled their bikes out of the garage onto the driveway, El getting on Mike’s bike behind him.

It was easily close to ninety degrees outside, the peak heat of the day upon them. Max had lathered on sunscreen earlier, but she prayed it would be enough. A sunburn would not make this day any better.

By the time they got to where they were going, they were all sweating profusely and Max’s ankles burned slightly; she always forgot to put sunscreen on them. Obviously not going to break into Bradley’s Big Buy this year, they were instead on the other side of the Bradley’s Big Buy parking lot, where a pop-up fireworks shop had been for the past week. They laid their bikes down on the cement close to the shop and ambled over to it. Mike had been somewhat right in his prediction that they might be picked over, but they definitely weren’t sold out.

A man in his early thirties stood inside, waving as they entered the shaded tent. “Welcome, guys,” he said enthusiastically. His excitement only served to remind Max how uncomplicated this day was for most people.

They fanned out through the tent, looking at various fireworks. Max knew very little about fireworks, and followed after Lucas, who was a self-proclaimed expert. He kept telling her facts about the extreme power of some of the fireworks. She indulged his interest though she lacked her own. They weren’t allowed to buy the big, expensive fireworks, anyway. Mrs. Wheeler had been very explicit about what kind of fireworks they could set off in the Wheelers’ driveway, and the kind they had thrown at the Mind Flayer last year most definitely did not qualify.

Lucas filled his arms with smaller, cheaper fireworks. It took him only five minutes to finish his search, carrying the pile of fireworks he had acquired over to the makeshift checkout counter. The rest of the Party joined Lucas and Max at the counter, not holding any fireworks of their own; they had agreed to let Lucas do all the choosing.

Mike pulled money his mother had given him for fireworks out of his pocket, handing it over when the clerk of the store told them the price. All of the fireworks added up, the bill wasn’t particularly cheap, and Max was glad she wasn’t paying. The clerk loaded the fireworks into a cardboard box. Lucas accepted the box, holding it awkwardly in his hands. They left the tent, going back to their abandoned bicycles.

“How the hell am I going to bike with this thing?” Lucas complained, the rest of them climbing on their bikes without really thinking about it.

“Balance it between your handlebars,” Dustin suggested, tone indicative of the fact that he considered it Lucas’s problem.

Lucas scowled. “Why do I have to do it? I picked them out.”

“Because you picked them out,” Max said. Lucas turned his scowl to her and she made a face at him.

Dustin, who was looking at his watch, said, “It’s three o’clock. Hurry up.”

They wanted to get to the Fourth of July carnival by six. Ignoring Lucas and Dustin’s continued arguing about the placement of the box, Max spoke over them, announcing, “El and I are going to go back to my house. We’ll meet you guys outside the carnival at six.”

“We haven’t figured out how I’m going to carry this box yet!” Lucas exclaimed, like this was a group effort.

Max and Eleven glanced at each other and giggled. Max swung her leg over her bicycle seat and El climbed on behind her, hands closing over Max’s shoulders. “I think you’ll figure it out,” Max replied in a fake encouraging voice, lifting her feet from the ground and pushing down on the pedals of her bike. Pedaling forcefully, their bike had whizzed fifteen feet away before Lucas could craft a response.

It was somewhat difficult to bike with El on the back, particularly because Max wasn’t used to biking in general. She gripped the handlebars tightly, feet kicking down in full force on the pedals to carry the weight of both girls. Partly because she was focusing on biking and partly because she was lost in her own thoughts, Max didn’t talk the whole bike ride home. El didn’t break the silence.

Back at Max’s house, they set about getting ready for the carnival. They had bought face paint at the store yesterday, and now they opened up the kit on the dining table. El sat down in one of the dining chairs, Max standing over her with a small paintbrush she was pretty sure she’d used for an art project in the sixth grade.

She dipped the paintbrush in the red paint and set about painting the stripes of the United States flag on El’s cheek. She was no artist but the design was simple, and she managed to then paint white strikes in between the red stripes without mixing the colors too much. Then she painted a blue box in the corner, setting the paintbrush down when she was done so the box could dry before she tried to paint the stars on it.

“Pretty?” El asked when Max had finished the majority of the design on her face. There was no mirror in the kitchen, so she couldn’t see it for herself.

“Fairly pretty,” Max said, truly proud of her artistic accomplishment. “Now you do me while yours dries.” She switched spots with El.

“I will do fireworks,” El informed Max, picking up a different paintbrush that was also likely from when Max was in the sixth grade. Max did not object to the proposition, though she had little idea of El’s artistic ability.

The paint was cold against her face. El’s eyes were narrowed in concentration as she moved the paintbrush in tiny, slow strokes across Max’s cheek. Max tried not to move. Having her face painted brought back memories; the last time she’d had it painted had been in California, when she was ten or eleven. Billy, fourteen or fifteen at the time, had been bullied by Neil into taking her to some kind of summer festival in San Diego. He had told her her face paint made her look like a little kid, and she’d been supremely offended. Back then, it was still important to her that Billy think she was cool or something.

“Done,” El said, laying her paintbrush down next to Max’s. “I hope it’s good.”

“I bet it’s better than mine,” Max assured her. She wanted to see it already, but figured she’d better finish El’s face paint. She picked back up her same brush and dipped it into the white paint, bringing it close to the blue box that was now dry on El’s face. She tapped little dots across the blue, not even trying to make them look like stars. She wasn’t talented enough for that. When she’d fit as many “stars” as she could (not fifty, for sure), she tossed the brush back onto the table. “Now we’re both done, let’s go see.”

They both ran to Max’s room, stopping in front of her mirror. Max twisted her neck so her cheek was full center in the mirror. The fireworks El had painted weren’t perfect, but they were good. Little curved red, white, and blue lines came outwards from white dots concentrated in the middle of the design.

“You painted really well,” Max told El, who smiled at the praise.

“You did too,” El said. “Ready now?”

Max shook her head. “Not yet, we have to go all out.”

She didn’t know why she cared. She didn’t, actually. She didn’t care at all if they had nice face paint and were dressed in red, white, and blue. But she did care that caring about the holiday was what El had said they should do.

She opened her closet, digging around. She tossed various items of clothing onto her bed: red and blue shirts, her white shorts. El, getting what Max was doing, crouched down and opened her own suitcase, also digging around in it.

A few minutes later, they both had excessively patriotic outfits picked out: Max had blue and white striped tank top and her white shorts, El had light blue pinstriped shorts and a red patterned t-shirt. They changed into them, careful not to mess up their face paint, and then returned to Max’s mirror.

“We look like we’re really into the Fourth of July,” Max laughed. “Nobody would guess the truth.” She hadn’t thought much about saying it, but regretted it once she had.

El pulled her eyes away from the mirror. “How long until we go?”

Max’s alarm clock said it was four. “Like an hour and a half, I guess,” Max told her. “What do you want to do?”

Taking one last look at herself in the mirror, El said softly, “I’m going to read for a while.”

“Read?”

“In the living room.”

Oh. El wasn’t really a big reader, but Max understood. El wanted to be alone. Max hadn’t realized how much she herself wanted to be alone until El left the bedroom and relief flooded her. Well, relief and other emotions. Being with people had been a distraction today. With no distraction, Max was lost again.

She dropped down onto her bedroom floor, curling her legs inwards so she was sitting criss-cross-applesauce. Her face itched slightly, and she reached her hand up to touch it, pulling it away when she felt the hardened face paint. She’d forgotten. They’d done the face paint less than fifteen minutes ago and she had already forgotten.

She wondered what El was thinking about. Hopper, presumably. But she wondered what El thought about when she thought about Hopper. Did she just think about how she missed him? Did she think about the last time she saw him? Did she feel guilty for something? Max didn’t know what El could feel guilty for, seeing as Hopper’s death definitely hadn’t been El’s fault. But didn’t everyone feel guilt when it came to death? There was always something to consider, something to regret. At least in her experience. Maybe it was just her.

She didn’t know what made her think of the box underneath her bed. One second she was sitting there, practically catatonic, the next she was reaching her arms under her bed, feeling for the box that had been there for weeks now. As she pulled it out, she accidentally bumped her head on her bed frame, swearing at the pain. She froze, hoping El wouldn’t hear and come back to make sure she was okay. She didn’t want company for this. Fortunately, there were no footsteps in the hall.

Though she already knew what was inside, Max lifted the lid of the box hesitantly. The envelopes of photos stared back at her, looking exactly the same as how she remembered from the night she’d stolen the box from her mother’s room. This time, she dug her hand deeper in the box and removed a different envelope. The date on this envelope said _8/2/76_. Billy was nine.

The photos were matte finished, the paper smooth against Max’s fingers. The first wasn’t of Billy but of the ocean. She didn’t recognize the precise spot, but she recognized the view. She set the first photo on her floor. The second was of Billy. He held a surfboard, grinning broadly. Max had never seen Billy grin like that. Never. She didn’t think he had ever grinned like that when she knew him.

There were five or six photos of Billy on the beach, then the setting of the photos changed. One of them seemed to be taken at some kind of summer festival, maybe on the Fourth of July itself. It was of Billy and Neil together. Billy was smiling, but it was definitely not the same as the smile on the beach. She didn’t recognize this smile, either, but she recognized the look in Billy’s eyes. It was the same look Billy had when Neil had him pinned against the wall. Had it really not changed after all those years?

Of course it hadn’t. Nothing had. For all she knew, Neil had hit Billy an hour before that picture was taken, or an hour after. He was nine. _Nine_. It was all she could do not to crumple the photo.

She loaded all the photos back into their envelope, not bothering to look at the rest of them. She didn’t want to see any more of Neil. Who had even taken these photos? Obviously it hadn’t been Neil. It must have been Billy’s mother.

That would explain why the last envelope was the one from 1977, the one she had opened with El. She tossed envelopes onto the floor, trying to find one dated later than the one from October, 1977. There weren’t any. Billy’s mother must have left all of these pictures behind when she left.

When she left Billy.

Max leaned her back against the hard wood of her bed frame now. She was trembling uncontrollably. Her heart beat rapidly, but the beats felt short somehow. Maybe she was going to have a heart attack. She imagined being found dead on her bedroom floor, surrounded by envelopes of pictures of Billy. On the anniversary of the day Billy died. That would be ironic.

When had she started crying? Her under-eyes were wet. She couldn’t cry. Her face paint would run. She swiped her fingers carefully under her eyes. _Get it together, Max_. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block any more tears from leaking out.

She should never have taken the box from her mother’s closet. Whenever Neil got out of prison, he would take it with him. It was his. Max would never have seen it.

No, she was glad she’d taken the box. She would hide it in her room forever before she let Neil take it. Did Neil even care that today was the anniversary of his son’s death? Probably. He hadn’t not cared at all about Billy. He just hadn’t cared in the right way.

Nobody ever cared in the right way about Billy. So what if Billy’s mother had taken those pictures of him on the beach, of him smiling for real? So what? She had left him to never smile like that again. It was just as much her fault as Neil’s that Billy had turned out the way he did. It was everyone’s fault.

It was Max’s fault, too. Max knew the look in Billy’s eyes from the picture too well, because of all the times she’d seen it. All the times she’d seen Neil’s hand connect with Billy’s face. All the times she’d heard Billy’s door slam, music exploding from within. All the times she had run to her own room, slammed her own door, turned on her own music to drown out the sound of Neil yelling at Billy. All the times she’d sat huddled in the corner of her room and prayed it would end. Why had she prayed it would end? For Billy, or for herself? Why had she tried to drown out the sound of Neil yelling at Billy? Because Billy always told her to go away and not to say anything, or because it made her uncomfortable?

And here she was, going to a carnival on the anniversary of Billy’s death. Acting like she was going to have fun today. Was it for her friends or for herself?

Keeping her eyes shut was not working. She was shaking. Her tears were falling. She couldn’t stop it. Why did she have to stop it? God forbid she wreck her face paint.

She punched the floor, hard. The dull blow sent her fist ricocheting backwards slightly. It hurt in the way things did when you had actually done damage to them. Her knuckles felt warm from the impact. Maybe they would swell. If her worst physical injury of the month was swelling knuckles from punching the floor, she would live.

She opened her eyes, sending what tears she had held in rolling downwards. Her knuckles were red.

Moving without true motivation, she gathered up the envelopes she’d scattered across her floor, putting them back in the box. She replaced the lid and shoved the box back underneath her bed. She would keep it there until the end of time to protect it from Neil, but she didn’t want to look at any more photos.

She stood up and crossed the room to the door, padding softly across the hall. In the bathroom, she removed a Kleenex from the box on the counter and rubbed it aggressively over her eyes. When she pulled it away, it wasn’t just damp, but wet. She studied her face paint, and was relieved to see it hadn’t really smudged. One of the red lines had smeared a bit, but it wasn’t terribly noticeable. Even if it was selfish to care about her faint paint, even if she was a terrible person, it was about El more than her.

El was in the living room, on the couch. Max didn’t consider that maybe El wasn’t done being alone until she was already in the living room. El looked up. She looked okay, but Max noticed that a tiny corner of her American flag was smudged.

“More face paint?” El said. Her voice was definitely a bit off. She’d for sure been crying too. “I can do your other side.”

“Okay,” Max agreed. They both went back to the dining table, where the face paint kit still sat out. Max sat in the chair. “You could do Wonder Woman’s logo,” she suggested.

El nodded. The paint wasn’t as cold on Max’s face anymore.

* * *

The Fourth of July carnival was incredible, but not as incredible as last year’s. Most likely. Max had only seen pictures of it. Hawkins’s new mayor was trying to make a good impression, but was evidently being just a bit more conservative with the town’s funds.

Max and Eleven were both melting. They had walked all the way to the carnival so they didn’t have to keep track of Max’s bike. It was only just now six, and the air was barely cooler than earlier in the day. They stood impatiently at the entrance to the carnival while they waited for the boys to show up, taking turns gulping down the water Max had brought.

“Eleven, Max!” Mike was calling to them. He and the rest of their friends were coming towards them, also without bikes. Jonathan had probably driven them, but he wasn’t with them now.

“You guys really took red, white, and blue to the max,” Lucas remarked when they reached Max and Eleven. The boys were dressed exactly the same as they had been earlier in the day. None of them looked even remotely patriotic.

“You look good,” Mike said to El, grabbing her hand.

Max raised her eyebrows at Lucas, who said quickly, “Yeah, you look awesome, Max.”

“‘Awesome’ might be going a bit far,” she replied. But she smiled and moved to walk next to Lucas as they entered the carnival.

The entirety of Hawkins had to be there. It was extremely noisy, the sounds of music mixing with children’s screams so that it was impossible to distinguish between the two. The rides were largely distributed around the edge of the carnival, while the games were in the middle. They started towards the middle.

They took an inventory of how much money they had, like they did at the arcade. Dustin, who had recently spent his life savings on a plane ticket to Utah, had the least. They divvied up their money so that it was more equal, and decided who would play what game first.

It was decided that Lucas would go first at a game where you threw a ball to knock over bottles. El, seeing the prizes hung along the top back rack of the game tent, said, “Do we win those?”

“Maybe,” Max answered, “but it’s super rigged.”

“Hey, you never know,” Lucas said, handing his money over to the worker running the game.

He did not win anything. He went again, and again did not win anything. Then Dustin went, and Dustin didn’t win anything. They switched games.

Forty-five minutes later, they had played nearly all of the games and had won one prize: a small stuffed monkey that was falling apart. Max had won it at skee ball, but gave it to El.

“This proves skee ball is the best game,” she said as she handed the monkey over to Eleven. “It’s the least rigged of all of them, I told you.” In reality, it had been her dad who had told her that. She did not feel bad about passing the fact off as her own.

“You just got lucky,” Dustin countered. He was a little annoyed that he hadn’t won anything. They all were, which made Max prouder of her victory.

“I did not, let’s see you beat me.”

“I don’t have any more money,” Dustin complained. They had bought ride tickets first to prevent themselves from going overboard and spending all their money on games. It turned out to be a smart move.

“Guess you’ll just have to take my word for it, then,” Max said, eyes sparkling. She knew she was better at skee ball than all of them combined. Playing it had been her favorite part of the day so far. It was the perfect few-minute distraction.

The carnival worker, overhearing their conversation, said in a salesman-esque voice, “If you play against someone else, a prize is guaranteed! The more people, the bigger the prize.”

“Too bad you don’t have any more money,” Max said to Dustin, grinning at the frustration on his face. “Do any of you guys?” She asked the rest of her friends.

They all shook their heads. “All I have left is money for food,” Mike said. “Unless you want me to spend that.”

“No way, I’m starving,” Lucas said. “It’s fine, you got the monkey. And it’s kind of a shitty prize, anyway. No offense, El.”

“Excuse me, but you have a taker!” The carnival worker was speaking again, louder so that he caught their attention.

Max turned around. A high school age boy was standing in front of the skee ball game. “Want to play me?” He asked. “You’ll lose, but I’ll give you the prize anyway.” His tone was unnecessarily condescending.

Max furrowed her eyebrows at him. “Gross, I don’t want a prize from you. But you won’t get one, because I’ll win.”

She slid her hand into the pocket of her shorts and pulled out enough coins for the game. The carnival worker accepted them from her and then took the same amount of money from the boy challenging Max.

She prepared herself to play, placing her feet firmly and strategically on the ground. This boy did not know what was coming for him. Her dad had taught her to play skee ball. She was the master.

The carnival worker pressed a button and balls rolled down the chutes beside Max and the boy she was competing against. She lifted her first ball and threw it underhand, getting it in one of the back holes and scoring one-hundred points, the highest possible score. She took a breath and went for her next ball, doing the same thing.

While Max was going slowly and strategically, the boy next to her was moving quickly. Max tuned him out completely, but she heard the balls striking down with much higher frequency in his lane. She still had three balls left when his last one thudded down, but she didn’t look over, her concentration solely on her own game.

Her third-to-last ball missed the one-hundred point hole but scored fifty points–not too bad. She grabbed her second-to-last ball and held it steady in her hand, gearing up to throw it. Just as she was about to release the ball, she felt something touch her shoulder, shaking her balance as she let go of the throw. The ball flew with much less force than she had intended to give the throw, landing in the large ten-point hole.

 _What the hell?_ She twisted her head sideways. The boy she was playing stood watching her, a slight smirk on his face. He had bumped her on purpose.

Anger filled her, but she shoved it out of her mind. She could still win. She’d practically been getting straight one-hundreds. She lifted her last ball, rooted her feet into the grass, and raised her arm to throw again.

This time, the collision was even rougher. She stumbled, the path of her throw completely off. Again, it landed in the ten-point section.

What. The. Hell.

“What the hell!” She shouted, almost choking out the words. She saw the scores above her lane and the other boy’s lane: hers said 670, his said 730. She was livid.

“I’m sorry, it looks like this gentleman won,” the carnival worker said. He was already getting down whatever prize the boy was going to win. Max didn’t care about the stupid prize.

“He cheated!” She exclaimed, hands curling into fists. “Didn’t you see him bump me? You had to have seen him bump me!” She spun around to face her friends, who all looked horrified. “Didn’t you guys see him bump me?”

They nodded, all five of them. “He cheated,” Lucas said loudly. “He knocked her off balance. She was going to win.” Her friends made noises of agreement.

The carnival worker handed a large stuffed bear to the boy. “Sorry, kids, I didn’t see it. If I don’t see it, I can’t prove it happened. It’s just a game.”  
But it wasn’t, not right now, to Max. “You’re a _fucking_ cheater!” She spit at the boy, who was looking incredibly pleased with himself. “What the _fuck_ is wrong with you?”

He shrugged. “I’m not the one screaming about a carnival game. People are looking at you.”

She glanced vaguely around her; yes, people were looking at her. She didn’t care. “I’m not the one who cheated at a carnival game! GO TO HELL!” If anything, she was getting louder.

Lucas touched her arm. She flinched away. “Max, we know he cheated, it doesn’t matter-”

“It matters to me!” She moved forward, towards the boy. She didn’t know what she was doing. He looked at her like she was crazy. He was judging her. She hated him for judging her.

She pushed him, hard, causing him to stumble backwards. He was taller than her, probably two years older., and he would definitely win in a fight. She didn’t want to fight him. Seeing him stumble was enough.

“You cannot fight here,” the carnival worker was speaking, tone no longer friendly. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“I have to leave?” She protested. She had released enough anger by pushing the boy that she was now able to feel embarrassment. “He’s the one who cheated.”

“Come on, Max,” Lucas said. It was so quiet she was probably the only one who could hear him. He closed his hand over her forearm, tugging her away. She allowed him to do it, backing away from the scene she had caused.

Nobody said anything until they were a safe distance away from the skee ball game. She was breathing heavily, heart beating the same way it had in her house after she looked at the photos of Billy. She was anxious, so anxious she was practically sick. She didn’t even know what she was anxious about.

“He was a piece of shit,” Dustin offered, once they had stopped walking. They were clustered in an empty corner beside the funhouse. “You obviously would’ve won.”

“I know,” she said. Her voice cracked as she said it. She wanted to sit down. She thought she might throw up. “It’s whatever, that was bullshit.”

“At least you won this,” El said, holding up the stuffed monkey and smiling. “Cuter than his prize.”

“Yeah, he won, like, a purple frog,” Dustin said. Her friends all laughed. She detected the nervousness in the laughter, but it was reasonably well hidden.

“Thanks,” she mumbled, feeling her cheeks flush. “You’re right. Fuck him. Let’s go do something.”

“I’m seriously starving, let’s get food,” Lucas said.

Food kiosks were clustered around the entire carnival, but most of them were concentrated around the Ferris wheel, surrounded by picnic tables. Still feeling like she might be sick, Max told them she would save a table for them if they bought her food. She secured a spot at the edge of the cluster of picnic tables. A moment later, she was joined by Lucas.

“Aren’t you starving?” She said. Under the table, she squeezed her hands together, hoping the pressure would somehow slow her heart rate.

“Yeah, I told Mike what I want.” Lucas sat down next to her. She shoved her hands further under the table. “Was…was that about Billy?”

“What, me pushing that kid?” She tried to scoff at his words, but it did not sound legit. “No, it was about skee ball.”

“But it’s just skee ball. And I know today is, like, a big deal. But you haven’t said anything about it.”

“There is no such thing as ‘just skee ball,’” she said sarcastically. If she squeezed her hands together any tighter, she might draw blood.

“Max…” Lucas frowned at her.

She sighed. “It was just fun to win, and then he ruined it. It’s not about Billy. Billy was bad at skee ball.”

“You played skee ball with Billy?”

It was strange that of all things to do with Billy, they were talking about him playing skee ball. “Once, a long time ago. I beat him so bad. He was furious.”

“Oh. Did he like…like, was he really mad?”

Here she was thinking that after Billy had sacrificed himself for Eleven, her friends saw him in a new light. But Billy would always be Billy. Literally–Billy would always only be exactly as he had been at eighteen. “No, no, not mad like that. Just mad. It was kind of fun.”

Lucas slid closer to her on the picnic bench. “You never talk about having fun with Billy. I know you miss him, Max.”

She released her hands from each other, setting them on top of the picnic table. They were red now, from what she could see in the dimming sunlight. The knuckles on her right hand were still swollen from having hit her bedroom floor. “I do, but not just because of the times I had fun with him. I mean, that wasn’t as many times as times when I didn’t. I just miss him because I miss him. It’s not fair.”

“I know. He was too young to die.”

She shook her head. “Yeah, he was, but that’s not what I mean. That’s not the only thing that’s not fair.” Her eyes traveled forward, centering her gaze on Eleven, who was standing next to Mike in line to buy curly fries. “I can’t explain it. Sorry.”

Lucas closed his hand over Max’s on top of the picnic table. “What happened to your hand?” He asked, like he was giving her an out of the conversation if she wanted one. She didn’t know if she did; she’d expected the conversation would make her heart beat faster, make her more anxious, but it had somehow done the opposite.

“I punched my floor,” she said honestly, laughing. “I’m basically Billy 2.0, huh?”

“Max-”

“Kidding! I’m kidding. There will never be another Billy. Probably for the best.”

“Yeah, Billy was pretty…special.” Lucas laughed, too. His eyes stared straight into hers. Her heart fluttered, but it wasn’t the same as before. It was a good feeling.

“We have food!”

Their friends had come back, arms now loaded with paper bags of food. Mike distributed the bags and they all squeezed onto the picnic table, Will on the other side of Max. She tore open a ketchup packet and dipped a curly fry into it. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until now.

Two hours later, it was getting to be pretty dark. After eating, they had wandered around looking at booths until they got bored and started going on rides. Max got sick from the spinning rides, especially after eating, but she went on all of them anyway.

They had just come off of the Scrambler when Dustin checked his watch and said, “Fourteen minutes! Come on!”

They had made their master plan for the fireworks over a week ago: get on the Ferris wheel right before they announced the fireworks, and hope that they would stop the ride during the fireworks. Though they were all somewhat nauseated from the Scrambler, they took off running towards the Ferris wheel. Fortunately, the line was not long.

From what Mrs. Wheeler had said about it, they had expected to have to split their group in half, but this Ferris wheel must have been different than the one from last year. The cars were circular, with seats all around, and they managed to all squeeze into one car if they completely gave up on personal space. The worker running the ride had just shut their car door when the announcement went off throughout the carnival: “Attention everyone, the fireworks spectacular will begin in ten minutes.”

The worker turned around and said, “Guys, I’m technically supposed to close the ride now.” They all made their best pleading faces, however, and he rolled his eyes. “Whatever, you can go on up.”

Success.

Max hadn’t ridden a Ferris wheel in ages. She was not afraid of heights, she loved them. She leaned her head over the edge of the car as they moved upwards, the rides and people of the carnival getting smaller and smaller.

“This is cool,” Will said, also looking over the edge. She was surprised that he wasn’t scared of heights.

Their car stopped one position from the top of the Ferris wheel. Someone else was at the top. They had probably bribed the guy who ran the Ferris wheel or something. Max didn’t really care; they were high enough as it was.

“Five minutes,” Dustin said, gesturing to his watch. Max continued looking over the edge of the car, ignoring her friends’ conversations about what color fireworks they would set off. It was so far down.

She didn’t notice the time passing. Her eyes glazed over, watching the continually blinking lights below her. It was so weird that last year she had been at Starcourt, had seen Billy die, and this year she was in a Ferris wheel car about to watch fireworks for fun. Had life really improved that much? No. Last year, Neil had only hit her one time in her whole life. Last year, Billy had been here. It was too bad Billy wasn’t here, now; things would really be better then. Maybe if Neil had gone to prison when Billy was alive, he would have changed. Not that he would have. Neil had gone to prison because Billy died, indirectly. There was no _better_ between this year and last year. There was only _different_.

The first explosion startled her. She jumped, jostling the car. Her friends weren’t talking anymore. Their heads were raised, focused up at the sky. She raised her head, too. The sky was no longer black but illuminated by colorful bursts of light. They were beautiful.

Music played from down below them, distant but still enhancing the fireworks show. Max pushed her hair behind her ears so it didn’t block her view at all. She’d expected her friends to comment on the fireworks, to say they were cool or incredible, but everyone was silent. They were probably all thinking about last year; it wasn’t like it was just her and El who had been affected by it.

Or maybe they weren’t. Maybe they were just thinking how cool and incredible the fireworks were. It didn’t matter to Max. She appreciated their silence. She would have been content for the fireworks to never end, for their Ferris wheel car to never descend downward, for them to never get out.

* * *

Back at Mike’s, it was time for the second most exciting part of the day: setting off their own fireworks. Max helped Lucas carry the box of fireworks from the Wheelers’ kitchen out onto their driveway, setting the box down far away from the house. Will carried over a bucket of water, and Dustin presented them with two boxes of matches he’d gotten from the house. Mike and Eleven set up camping chairs at the other end of the driveway, close to the house. Jonathan and Nancy, who wanted to watch, were also outside.

“Are you guys ready?” Lucas said dramatically. His intense excitement was obvious. “I’ll go first.”

“You’re a pyromaniac,” Max said, tossing him the matches Dustin had given her. She backed up to stand with the rest of her friends, watching Lucas open one of the boxes and pull out a small firecracker.

He positioned it on the ground, next to the street, and got out a match. He struck it on the edge of the matchbox and lit the end of it, immediately blowing out the match and running off towards the rest of them. After a few seconds, the firecracker shot up into the air, exploding. It was far less impressive than the fireworks they’d watched from the Ferris wheel, but more interesting because they’d done it themselves. Well, Lucas had done it himself.

“It’s my turn,” Dustin said, snatching the box of matches from Lucas.

“We should do two at a time,” Lucas said eagerly. He really was a pyromaniac. “Mike, you can do the other one.”

Mike got up from where he was sitting, next to Eleven, and followed Dustin across the driveway. They each opened firecrackers and set them up next to each other, lighting them with matches. They both ran away before the fireworks shot up into the sky.

They took turns setting off fireworks, Jonathan and Nancy pushing until they got to do it, too. Only Max didn’t ask to set one off. She didn’t know why. She knew it was safe, logically; she’d seen her friends do it just fine, and she considered them to be clumsier than her. She didn’t know why, but she had a weird feeling about it. Like if she did it, something would go wrong and she would hurt somebody. It didn’t make sense.

“Max, don’t you want to set one off?” Lucas asked, having finished setting off another by himself. The pile of fireworks was dwindling away. “You’re the only one who hasn’t.”

“Not everyone is obsessed with fire like you,” she joked, but she knew it was dumb. Even El had done one by now.

“It’s fun,” El said. She did look like she was having a lot of fun. Max had been, earlier, but now she squirmed inside.

“Are you sure?” Lucas asked again. All of her friends were looking at her. Even Jonathan and Nancy were watching her.

She swallowed. “Okay, sure,” she said nonchalantly. It was just a firework. It wasn’t a big deal.

“You and Mike can both do one,” Lucas said, “he hasn’t in a while.” Yeah, Mike was more interested in sitting next to El. At Lucas’s words, though, Mike got up. Lucas had become the unofficial leader of this whole operation.

Max walked with Mike out to the edge of the driveway, selecting one of the smaller boxes and opening it. Unlit, the firecracker was totally harmless, but it felt like a weapon in her hand. She kneeled down as she placed it on the ground, making sure it was totally flat. Mike handed her one of the two matchboxes. She removed one of the matches from it, striking it along the edge of the box at the same time Mike did.

The air smelled smoky. The pace of her breathing had quickened immensely. She stared at the lit match in her hand, fingers feeling numb.

“Max, come on,” Mike said, his voice echoing in her head.

She nodded. A split second after Mike, she leaned down and lit the end of her firecracker.

Time slowed. She stood over it, watching the flame move up the string. It was crazy how fast it traveled upwards, defying gravity. It was going to explode.

“Max, move!” Mike’s voice was further away. He’d run away. She was supposed to run away.

Her legs felt heavy. Fireworks really were weapons, if a weapon was something that could hurt you. Or kill you.

“MAX!”

She was being dragged backwards. Mike had run back to her. Her firework shot up into the sky milliseconds after Mike’s, milliseconds after Mike had pulled her away. The explosion was louder from here, in the middle of the driveway. So close to where it had gone off.

“You have to run away!” Mike exclaimed, like he honestly thought she had missed the fact that every single one of her friends had run away from their fireworks after lighting them.

“I know,” she said, rolling her eyes. Why was she rolling her eyes? She looked like a total idiot.

Her friends had all moved to the middle of the driveway and were standing around her.

“Fireworks can kill you,” someone said. It was Jonathan.

“I know,” she said again. She lifted her chin, fixated on the sky like the fireworks might still be going off, which they weren’t. There was only smoke left in the sky.

“Are you trying to die, then?” Mike said disbelievingly.

“No, what the hell,” she was frustrated with them and she didn’t fully know why. “I just forgot.”

“You were going to stand over it while it went off!” Mike protested.

She searched for Lucas’s face in the circle of people around her. He looked horrified. He didn’t speak until he saw her looking at him. “You could’ve died, Max,” he said, quieter than Mike.

“I wasn’t trying to die, Jesus!” She meant it. She didn’t know why she hadn’t moved, but it hadn’t been because she wanted a firecracker to explode in her face. She wasn’t insane. “Can we just move on?”

“We’re just freaking out that you almost got your face blown off,” Jonathan said.

“It was an accident!” She hadn’t noticed it very much before she’d set off the firework, but now the smell of smoke was mildly dizzying. She felt like smoke was filling her lungs. “I wouldn’t have died, anyway. People don’t die that easily. Hell, nobody’s died since last year. I guess you guys are right, actually. Maybe it would be right on time for me to get my face blown off.”

She was very aware that everyone appeared shocked at her saying this. She was digging herself in deeper. She’d said she wanted them to move on, but she was not acting like it. Did she want them to move on? She felt like she was trying to make some kind of point.

“What does it even matter?” She went on. She knew she should stop and she would have if someone told her to, but nobody did. “Who even cares? Billy died, but who cares about that? Me? He didn’t deserve to die, so if I don’t deserve to die either then we’d be in good company!”

Her face was hot. She was probably turning red. She wanted it to stop, _it_ being her. She wanted to stop.

She pushed through her friends, running back to the edge of the driveway where the few remaining fireworks were. She tore open one of the boxes, pulling out a larger firecracker than the one she’d set off a minute ago. She heard footsteps running behind her and saw Lucas out of the corner of her eye.

“Max, what are you doing?” He questioned, plainly frightened.

“Nothing,” she said dully. She took out a match. Lucas tried to take the firecracker from her but she faked him out, setting it down on the driveway and lighting the match. She looked at him pointedly before lighting the firework. She paused for half a second, enough time for Lucas to reach for her, but then took off running, away from the danger of the explosion before it went off.

“See?” She said, addressing everyone. “I don’t have a death wish, okay?”

The firework she had set off stopped going off, now nothing but smoke in the sky. She turned on the balls of her feet and marched into the garage. “I’m going to bed!” She yelled out to them. “Happy Fourth!”

She left them to talk about her behind her back, figuring her message would be further misunderstood if they saw her break down crying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you see any typos and you're reading this like early I'm sorry I usually like reread the whole thing quickly to catch typos but uh I just wasn't feeling like reading 9000 words right now and it's getting late.
> 
> I hope I put enough emotion into this chapter, I had a bunch of points I wanted to hit and coming away from it I don't even know which I did hit.
> 
> Btw about Lonnie last chapter, I didn't forget about it but I will mention what happened in later chapters it just wasn't as important as the 4th.


	8. For the Record

Max laid still on the floor of the Wheelers’ basement, sleep not even beginning to come to her. It had probably been a full hour since she’d stormed inside, and she was trying not to wish she hadn’t. She should have just stayed outside, said everything was an accident, and set off the rest of the fireworks with her friends. It was happening so often lately that she was losing control of what she said and did. She had always been so good at controlling her temper, back when Neil lived with her and her mother. Back then, he could say anything to her and she would just stand and nod. What had happened to her?

She lifted her head from her pillow and saw flakes of red on it: she had forgotten to wipe off her face paint. She was about to get up from where she laid to go wash it off when she heard the basement door creak open. Startled, she flattened herself back against her pillow and shut her eyes. She didn’t want anyone to know she was awake.

There was the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. The footsteps were light. Her friends probably didn’t want to wake her up. How many footsteps were there even? Mike and Lucas were not sleeping in the basement, but in Mike’s room. There were definitely more than three sets of footsteps.

“Do you think she’s asleep?” A whisper. It was Dustin.

 _No, Dustin, I am not._ She held herself as still as possible, forcing herself to breathe in a relaxed way.

“It looks like it,” Will whispered. Apparently she was a great actress when she was lying on the floor.

“Maybe.” Lucas’s whisper was more uncertain.

“Should we wake her up?” Dustin again.

“No, if she’s really asleep we should let her,” Lucas whispered firmly. True, if by some miracle she had managed to fall asleep on the floor in only an hour’s time after having a meltdown, she wouldn’t want anyone to wake her up. The idea was just very unlikely.

She heard jostling as her friends presumably sat down on the couch. Were they seriously going to hang out in here while she pretended to be sleeping? It was after eleven o’clock.

“Do you think she really wanted the firework to go off in her face?” Mike.

God. She had specifically said that she hadn’t, and she hadn’t even been lying. She didn’t really blame them for talking about her behind her back; it wasn’t quite like they were gossiping about her. But she half wanted to sit up and tell them again that she did not have a death wish. She just didn’t want to enough to truly do it.

“She said she didn’t,” Lucas responded. _Thank you, Lucas_. “I think she meant it. Like, why would she even?”

Dustin chimed in, “People do stuff like that to themselves, though. You know, suicide.”

 _Suicide_. Max wanted to die right now. No, not like that. Definitely not like that. She did not want to die, right now or ever. She had never really given that any thought. That was something crazy people did. Not even when she was the most miserable had she ever thought _I should just kill myself_. Did her friends really think that she might have?

“Suicide?” Eleven questioned.

“Yeah, it’s when you kill yourself.”

“Oh. _Max?_ ” Eleven’s whisper was both quieter than all the others and the most horrified.

“Max wasn’t trying to kill herself, Jesus, Dustin,” Mike whispered reassuringly.

“You’re the one who asked if she meant for the firework to go off in her face,” Dustin retorted. “Come on, she’s been acting weird lately.”

Max silently marveled at the fact that her friends believed she was asleep so genuinely that they would have this conversation near her. She kind of understood–it was easy to think people couldn’t hear you when you were lost in your own conversation–but it was also very stupid.

Will seemed to think similarly to Max on this front. “We shouldn’t talk about her right now,” he whispered.

“Yeah, she might not be asleep,” Lucas agreed. “Besides, today was just a weird day for her.”

“She broke up with you like three weeks ago,” Mike reminded Lucas, “and then she got drunk. And she beat up that kid.”

“Come on, that was a month ago,” Lucas protested. Max was surprised he was defending her. She knew if any of them were worried that something was wrong with her, it was Lucas. “She’s fine. Okay, maybe she’s not fine, but we shouldn’t talk about her.”

“Yeah, we should go to bed,” Will said.

She heard more shuffling and movement. Lucas and Mike said goodnight, and she heard footsteps padding back up the basement stairs. There was creaking from the basement bathroom’s door as Eleven, Will, and Dustin took turns changing and brushing their teeth.

When everyone seemed to have gone to bed, Max opened her eyes a quarter inch. All of the lights were off, but there was the vague glow of moonlight coming through the windows on the basement side door. She saw Eleven lying in the pillow fort. She didn’t want it to be obvious that she was awake so she didn’t twist her head, but she knew Will and Dustin were both sleeping on the couch just based off the fact that she couldn’t see them.

She closed her eyes again. It was time to actually go to sleep, but now her thoughts were whirring more than ever. Of course her friends thought something was wrong with her. There was, wasn’t there? As much as she didn’t want to think so, she knew there was. And it wasn’t like she was good at hiding it, not all the time.

The scary thing was that all the things her friends cited as reasons _why_ something was wrong, those were nothing compared to the reasons Max had herself. Yes, she had acted crazily, done things she regretted and hated doing. But those were isolated incidents, small moments of days in weeks in months. What was wrong with her, it was constant. It was the constant screaming in her head, the lack of feeling, the explosions of anxiety. Her friends didn’t see those things.

But yet they still knew something was wrong.

Max’s face itched. She really wished she had taken off her face paint. It was too late now. She rolled over to her other side, resting the Wonder Woman design on her pillow.

She was tired. It had been such a long day. She didn’t expect to fall asleep for a while, but at least the quiet of the basement was calming.

_She was standing outside her house. She was unlocking the front door. Her hand was turning the knob. She pushed the door and it swung into the house. There was Neil. She did not question why he was there. He was just there, and looking at her._

_And there was Billy. He was wearing his denim jacket. Neil was angry at Billy. He wasn’t looking at her anymore. He was yelling, but it was like when the volume on the TV was turned way down._

_“Don’t do that today,” she said, “it’s the Fourth of July.” She was wearing face paint._

_“Are you telling me what to do?” Neil’s shouting was audible for just that phrase. His face was blurry because he was moving. He pushed her hard onto the floor, but she didn’t feel any pain from it._

_Billy. Billy pulled Neil back from her. She was going to tell him not to, but she wasn’t doing it. Why wasn’t she? Neil punched Billy in the stomach. He doubled over, coughing. She thought she was screaming, but she didn’t hear the sound of it._

_Neil was gone. He’d vanished. She was standing in front of Billy._

_“I’m sorry,” she said, “I was about to tell him not to.”_

_“Your fault,” Billy said, walking past her. It wasn’t even a full English sentence. He bumped her shoulder, but she didn’t feel that, either._

_Her fault. She needed to undo this. She ran to the front door. She would redo this._

_Everything was dissolving. She was warm. She was hot._

She was awake. She was in Mike’s basement.

She sat up, shoving her blankets off of her. She had no idea what time it was, how long she had been asleep.

She was afraid to lie back down and go back to sleep. She didn’t feel as tired as before; maybe she had gotten enough. She directed her eyes towards the basement side door. The angle of the moonlight had changed, and she almost thought there was more light in general coming through the frosted glass window. The sun rose around 5:30, so it must be after four or something.

It would have to be enough. She was not going to see Neil and Billy again. Not tonight.

* * *

**July 6, 1986**

Max had not seen her friends in over twenty-four hours. She had eaten breakfast with them the previous day and then gone home. She knew avoiding them would only make them more likely to suspect something was wrong, but being with them had proved just as risky lately. She didn’t want to talk about the fireworks, and if she spent any time with them she would have to. As it was, Mrs. Wheeler’s presence during breakfast had prevented any questioning.

It was now after five o’clock the day _after_ the day after the Fourth of July. Max had spent the bulk of the day laying on her bed, listening to music on her record player. Susan had been gone for a few hours to work the lunch shift at Enzo’s, but had bene home most of the day, which was rare. She had left Max alone in her room, though. Maybe it was because she got that Max was upset, or maybe it was because she was too nervous to talk to Max. The latter was more probable.

Susan and Max’s relationship had worsened in the past two weeks, if that were possible. After Susan had gone out with Lonnie, the day Will and Eleven had gone home, she had told Max that she’d indeed asked Lonnie about his children. Apparently Lonnie had said that he had two sons that did not live in Hawkins anymore. Which was all the proof any reasonable person would need that Susan’s Lonnie was Will’s Lonnie. But despite Max’s recounting details of her conversation with Will about Lonnie, despite her reminding Susan that she liked Joyce and Joyce did not like Lonnie, Susan had refused to break up with Lonnie. She continued to say there was not enough proof that he was the same man, and Will might have exaggerated his perception of his father. All of this was code for what Max already knew: Susan liked the feeling of stability Lonnie gave her, and had too little self confidence to come to terms with reality.

All of this resulted in Max and her mother barely communicating. It made no difference to Max. She was angry at her mother. Not _loud_ angry, not angry like she wanted to fight with her, but silently and perpetually angrily. She would rather lie on her bed and listen to records until the end of time than do something with Susan.

Max was about to switch records in her record player when she heard a knock on her bedroom door and it swung open. Clearly, her mother had overcome her nervousness.

“Max, honey, I’m sorry to bother you,” Susan said. No, she was definitely still very nervous. “I’m going out with Lonnie in a bit.”

Max shrugged. She didn’t look away from the record in her hand. “Good for you.”

“Max, I wish you would listen to me when I say he’s a good person.” Susan had properly entered Max’s room now. She perched herself on the end of the bed. “I don’t like that we aren’t talking about this.”

“We talked about it, and you didn’t listen to me,” Max replied flatly. “So there’s no point. Just go away.”

“Max, divorce is complicated. Even if he is Will’s dad, that doesn’t make him a bad person. Is your dad a bad person just because we got a divorce?”

Max dropped the record she was holding onto her dresser and spun around slowly. “No, but I told you what Will said about him. He gets drunk. If you’re so sure, why haven’t you asked him about it?”

“Why haven’t I asked him why my fifteen-year-old daughter claims he’s an alcoholic and a jerk?”

Max sighed. “You know what I mean. I bet you haven’t mentioned his kids once since he said he had two sons. You’re in denial. So if you’re not going to stop being in denial, then don’t talk to me.” She thought she was angry, but she struggled to have energy even to say the words. She realized she was more disappointed than angry.

“Honey, I’ve been trying to give you space,” Susan said weakly. “But I came to talk to you, because Lonnie is coming to pick me up before we go out again. And I thought…”

“No.” Max wasn’t even shocked. Back when Susan and Neil were dating, Max hadn’t exactly been enthusiastic about it, but Susan had never understood fully. She hadn’t tried, and she wasn’t trying now.

“Max, just five minutes.”

“No.” Max glanced at her window. She didn’t want to leave the house. The very idea was exhausting. But she couldn’t stay here with him coming. “I have to go meet my friends, actually.”

Susan frowned but nodded. “Okay. Next time.”

Max rolled her eyes. “No, not next time, either.” Resigning herself to the fact that she was going to have to leave for a while, she kneeled down and started to put on her shoes. Her mother remained sitting on her bed, but Max ignored her. She lifted the backpack she’d been using all summer off the floor and stuffed her radio inside it. She was definitely not going to meet her friends, so she figured it was safer to have it with her when she went off alone.

She headed to the door, but was stopped by her mother’s hand on her arm.

“Max,” Susan said cautiously, “I’m sorry. You know, you could invite your friends over here instead. You never do that.”

A smart ploy, but Max was too smart for her mother. “What, so I can meet Lonnie after all? I’ll pass.”

Susan, however, shook her head. “No, that’s not what I meant. I-I’ll just go meet Lonnie at the car when he comes. You don’t have to meet him. Your friends can come over after we leave.”

Weird. Max would never have anticipated such a gesture. She didn’t intend to have her friends over, of course, but this meant she didn’t have to leave the house. She could listen to records until she fell asleep. Or died.

She found herself agreeing, thanking her mother. Normally she wouldn’t be nice to her mother even in the face of kindness, just because she lived in a state of constant frustration with her. But she was genuinely thankful.

Susan left Max’s room. Max shut the door behind her and went back to her records. But though she had been content to listen to them until the end of time only minutes ago, she was now bored of them. Antsy.

She went to her window, staring out it from a sideways angle so that she could see the road. Her mother hadn’t said when Lonnie was coming, but she had said it would be soon. Sure enough, within five minutes a car came up the road, slowing down as it neared the front of her house. Max couldn’t quite see Lonnie getting out, but he must have, because she heard a knock on the front door.

She tensed. Yes, her mother had said she didn’t have to meet him. But had he been expecting to meet her? Would he pressure her mother into it? Fortunately, Max heard no footsteps coming towards her room, and there was no knock on her bedroom door. She just heard the vague noise of the front door shutting. She could only see the end of Lonnie’s car through her window, but a moment later it drove off, presumably taking Susan with it.

Sighing with relief, Max went over to the backpack in which she had stuffed her radio. She unzipped it and pulled it out, pulling out the antenna. She had pushed it in yesterday so her friends couldn’t contact her. She still wasn’t sure she wanted to talk to all of them, but she did kind of want to talk to Lucas.

She verified that the radio was on the channel she and Lucas used to talk privately, and prayed his radio was on that channel, too. The last time they had talked on their radios was a few days ago.

She pressed in the button to talk and said, “Lucas, do you copy?” Right after she said it, she wondered if he was with the others. If he was, they would all hear her anyway. Then again, he probably didn’t have his radio with him at all if he was with the others.

There was no response. She tried again: “Lucas, do you copy?” No response. “Lucas?”

“Max! Sorry.” Lucas.

“You’re there!” She hesitated. She hadn’t thought very far ahead. “Are you with everyone? Or are you alone? Over.”

“I’m alone. Why?” She appreciated how normal he sounded. He wasn’t losing it over the fact that she hadn’t hung out with them today or yesterday. “Over.”

“I wondered…” She leaned back against her bedroom door, trying to quickly decide if she was sure about this or not. She was. “My mom just went out. Do you want to come over? Over.”

“Yeah!” Unlike her, the decision did not seem to be remotely difficult for him. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Over.”

“Cool. Bye.”

“Bye.”

She walked over to her bed and fell back onto it, dropping her radio next to her. She didn’t think she had ever invited Lucas over to her house, just him. The last time he had been there by himself was probably in the eight grade, when they’d gone to fight the Demodogs. She didn’t even feel like the same person. But Lucas had liked her then, and he liked her now. She knew why he liked her then: she was cool and badass. She wasn’t quite as sure why he liked her now. She was still cool, maybe, definitely still badass. But neither things were the same way that they had been.

She wished she’d put on a record to listen to while she waited for Lucas. She didn’t feel like getting up. Oh well, she’d have to when he got there, anyway. She rolled her legs over the end of her bed and crossed over to her dresser, where the record player was. She had been about to play Bon Jovi, a record of Billy’s that she’d taken from his room after he died. She lifted it up, brushed it off with her sleeve, and slid it into the record player. She hit the start button and music started playing.

Max went back to her bed, relaxed slightly by the music. Not that she wasn’t relaxed in general right now. She felt okay, really. She had spent the past two days stressing about her friends and what they thought of her. God, that seemed so unlike her, but it was true. Before Neil had gone to prison, she’d had these concrete secrets that she had not been able to tell her friends for clear reasons. She’d known why she kept those secrets, and how to keep them. The rules were totally different now. If those secrets were black and white, her current secrets were all different shades of grey. She didn’t know what was a secret and what wasn’t, why she hid certain things and why the things she hid were secrets at all.

She was always so confident when she told Lucas she wasn’t crazy. But if she _really_ was confident about that, why did she feel like she was lying when she said it? Why was she keeping what was in her head from her friends if it wasn’t a secret? Of course it was a secret. It was frightening, disarming. She didn’t want to be treated differently because of it, but it was more than that. They always wanted to help with things. They couldn’t help with this. There was no prison for her own mind.

She jumped when she heard knocking on her window. Her window.

She saw Lucas’s head through it, looking inside. Looking at her. She rushed forward, off her bed, and tugged up on the window so the opening was big enough for Lucas. He climbed upwards until he could slide into her room. Once he was inside, she shut the window. It was still too hot outside to leave it open.

“Why didn’t you just go to the front door like a normal person?” Max asked.

Lucas shrugged. “I figured you’d be in here.”

“Well, no shit, it’s my bedroom.” She walked over to the record player and hit the stop button. The room immediately felt more empty by virtue of the lack of Bon Jovi echoing all around it. “I still could have gone to the front door. My mom’s not here, remember?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Where did your mom go?”

She didn’t have to say anything, all she had to do was make a face. He got it.

“Oh, to see her boyfriend,” he said. “Hey, at least we can hangout now.”

She snorted, though not meanly. “You make it sound like I’ve not been hanging out with you guys because of my mother.”

Lucas laughed. “What other reason could there possibly be?” He said innocently. She rolled her eyes. “For the record,” he said, “we know you weren’t trying to kill yourself with a firecracker.”

She sat down on her bed. It felt like this conversation should take place sitting down. Following her lead, Lucas sat down on the other end.

“I wasn’t,” she started, wanting to very clearly establish that from the beginning, “but you know you guys considered it. I heard you. I wasn’t asleep.”

Max noticed Lucas’s face turn slightly red. “Oh. Sorry. We shouldn’t have talked about you like that.”

But it didn’t particularly bother her. She knew how friendship worked. Friends talked about things, and _things_ included people. “It’s okay, you didn’t really say anything bad. But I don’t want you guys to think of me like that. It’s not true, okay? I’ve never wanted to…do that.”

She didn’t think she was imagining slight relief in Lucas’s eyes. So, despite what he’d said to their friends when she was eavesdropping on them, he had seriously considered it, too. “We didn’t really think so. Seriously. You’ve just been acting different lately. But not, like, _bad_. We don’t think of you like that. I promise.”

Promise. Promise was always good. “Good,” she said. “Because I’m not like that. I think I’m just getting…bitchier.” She smiled at her own joke, so Lucas would smile, too. He did. “I didn’t want to not hang out with you guys, but I didn’t want you all judging me and shit.”

“We don’t, Max, for real.”

“Maybe not you, but everyone else.” She remembered the way Dustin had talked, that night. And the way Mike had yelled at her when he thought she was “trying to die.”

“No, I swear.” Lucas sounded a little too passionate about what he was saying for it to be entirely believable, but Max didn’t argue. It wasn’t like she wanted to avoid her friends forever. Now that she had Lucas had talked about it, it was conceivable that things could go back to normal.

Struck with inspiration, she lifted her radio, which was laying on the bed beside her. “If you promise they’re not judging me, how about we invite them over? My mom won’t be back for eons, if it’s anything like it usually is.”

Lucas nodded in agreement. “Sure.”

She twisted the tuning button on her radio to the channel that Mike was always on. “Mike, are you there? It’s Max. And Lucas. Over.”

“Hi, Max, I’m here. So are Will and Eleven. Over.” Mike’s response was quicker than Lucas’s had been. Max gestured meaningfully at the radio when Mike’s voice sounded through it as if to indicate this to Lucas. He flipped her off.

“My mom went out,” Max continued, “so I have the whole house to myself. You guys can come over, if you want. And tell Dustin, too. Over.”

A minute later, the whole plan had been made. Max switched her radio over to the other channel so she didn’t have to hear Mike radio Dustin, and tossed it back onto the bed. “What should we do until they get here?” She asked Lucas.

“I don’t know, it’s your house. I’m your guest.”

“Okay, let’s get food. I haven’t eaten in hours.” She jumped off her bed and opened her bedroom door. Lucas followed her down the hall and into the kitchen. She opened the fridge, but there was little in the way of actually desirable food in it. She took out a case of Coke, grabbing one for her and one for Lucas.

Lucas pointed at a bottle of wine in the door of the fridge, different from the one Steve had brought before. “Or we could drink that,” he said sarcastically.

“Hilarious.” She shut the fridge so quickly it almost closed on his hand, and then opened her can of Coke. “I prefer Coke, believe it or not.”  
Lucas jerked his hand away from the fridge, flipping her off for the second time in ten minutes. “Oh my god, you didn’t tell me you did cocaine. That explains so much.”

They left the kitchen and headed to the couch, still bickering jokingly. Max was surprised that things had gone back to normal this quickly. She switched on the TV, to MTV. Max had spent much of the previous afternoon watching MTV, and Susan had clearly not watched TV since then.

“Why do you always watch MTV?” Lucas complained.

Instead of answering, she threw one of the couch pillows in his direction, aiming for his head. She missed, however, and the pillow fell into Lucas’s Coke can on the coffee table. It tipped over, Coke spilling out onto the wood floor.

“Shit!” Max exclaimed, leaping up and quickly pulling away the pillow. “Get some paper towels from the kitchen.”

In the commotion, she didn’t notice the sound of the front door being unlocked. She only saw it swinging open, right as she looked up to take paper towels from Lucas. For a brief, shining moment, she assumed Susan had left the door unlocked and her friends were already here.

Instead, Susan herself entered the house, a middle-aged man following closely behind her.

Lonnie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Idek what the title to this chapter is I was like it's a pun
> 
> This chapter is 4.5k words and I feel like nothing actually happened. But like I just can't fit real tea into every chapter, I need these to like soften out what's normal for when real shit goes down haha, forgive me.
> 
> At least there's that sweet cliffhanger..!


	9. Lonnie

Max didn’t know where to look: at Lonnie or at Lucas. Did Lucas know what Lonnie looked like? Yes, he definitely did. He was staring in total confusion at Lonnie, who stood next to Susan by the door, also appearing wholeheartedly confused.

“You’re my son’s friend,” Lonnie said to Lucas, breaking the silence. Max continued to whirl her head back and forth between the two of them.

Feeling a strange responsibility to explain, though there was something to be said for pretending like none of them had any idea Lonnie knew Will, Max said quickly, “We’re friends with Will.”

“Did you know about this?” Lonnie asked Susan right at the same moment that Lucas turned to Max and asked, “Did you know?” For once, Max experienced a sense of solidarity with her mother. There was only solidarity between them when they shared secrets, it seemed.

“It’s not really a big deal,” Susan tried, voice nervous. “My daughter–uh, this is Max–thought you might be her friend’s dad, but I thought ‘what’s the likelihood of that?’ But this is great, now we can all spend time together…” At least it was clear that Susan knew this was bullshit.

Lonnie nodded slowly. “Yeah, it’s a small world,” he said. The way he looked at Max made her nervous, like he was privately mad at her. He probably was, for existing and being Will’s friend.

 _Will’s friend. Oh shit._ Will was on his way here, with the others. Max might have fucked up by hiding Lonnie from her friends, but it would be nothing compared to inviting Will over to unknowingly see his dad whom he didn’t like seeing. Probably. Max realized despite her conversation with Will about his dad, she didn’t know everything about how he felt.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Max said awkwardly. Awkwardness that allowed her to leave the room momentarily was better than the alternative. “I’ll be right back.”

“Max, honey, can’t you wait?” Susan said. Of course she didn’t want to be left alone in this situation that she had created.

“Uh, no,” Max said. Lucas looked at her, and she bugged her eyes at him, hoping he would get what she was doing. He seemed to, because he began to look alarmed as well as confused. “Sorry.”

She walked out of the living room until she was halfway into the kitchen, then broke into a run down the hallway towards her bedroom. She’d left the door open before, so she ran inside, snatching her radio off her bed. She pulled out the antenna and was about to speak into it when she heard more voices in the living room.

“Will!” Lonnie. She was too late. Good lord.

She ran back out of her room and to the living room, ignoring the annoyed look her mother gave her at obviously having faked needing to go to the bathroom.

Eleven, Mike, Dustin, and Will all stood in the living room. Will was slightly further forward than his friends, Lonnie addressing him specifically. He looked shellshocked. Which made sense, because one didn’t usually expect to see their estranged father in their friend’s living room.

“I’ll admit this is a little…unique,” Lonnie was saying, whether to Will or Max’s mother, she wasn’t sure. Probably to both, but with different meanings. “But it’s always good to see you, Will. Come here.” He walked forward, closing the gap between himself and Will, and pulled Will into a hug. It looked extremely uncomfortable; Will’s arms barely moved from his sides. Lonnie squeezed Will hard, but Max had the urge to rip him away from Will. He definitely didn’t deserve to hug him.

The rest of her friends seemed to feel similarly. They all looked various stages of horrified. Lucas, who was still standing close to Max, leaned in and whispered, “You knew?”

Max tried and failed to meet his eyes. “I thought so,” she whispered back. If _thought_ meant knew with 98% certainty but without specific visual evidence to back it up.

Lonnie, releasing Will from the hug, backed up and now looked at Max. She put on a poker face, which wasn’t difficult. _Flat_ was the only way she knew how to feel right about now. “You’re Max?”

At least he didn’t call her Maxine. Her mother must have made it clear she should be called Max, which was nice despite all the other bad stuff Susan had done. Max nodded. Then, remembering how submissive she always acted towards Neil, she said, “Yeah, I’m Max.” Maybe if he saw her as confident, he would respect her more and wouldn’t hit her when he was drunk and married to her mother. Yeah, it was a stretch, but she couldn’t stop her mind from considering it.

“I’m sure you had no idea your mom was dating your friend’s dad,” Lonnie said. His tone was suggestive, but he hid it with a smile. “Crazy coincidence, right? Of course, it’s always great to see Will.”

Max snuck a glance at Will. He still looked shellshocked. He wasn’t looking at her. Was he angry? Will was never angry. She reminded herself that this wasn’t _really_ her fault. It only might look that way from certain angles.

The tension in the room was palpable. Nobody knew what to say, Max included. Of all of them, she was the most informed. But she was also very nervous to be in Lonnie’s presence. Her nervousness was second only to Will’s, surely.

“Lonnie was really excited to meet you,” Susan said weakly, to say something. It was a valid thing to explain, though: why were she and Lonnie here, after she’d told Max she didn’t have to meet him? In all the commotion, Max had forgotten to be angry about that part. “He was sure you’d be okay with seeing him tonight.” In other words, Lonnie had pressured Susan into letting him meet Max, and Susan had cracked.

Lonnie looked expectantly at Max, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell him it was nice to see him. It wasn’t. He frowned slightly at her lack of dialogue. “I’m sure she was just excited to spend the evening with her friends,” he said. “It would probably be nice of us to let her do that.”

To Max’s surprise, Susan did not fully agree, but instead responded, “You’re right, Lonnie, but I think maybe…we should talk about this. Just so Max and her friends understand. Could we rain check on dinner?” That was the most assertive Susan had been towards a full grown man in a while.

Lonnie’s eyes glittered, evidently annoyed. But he didn’t protest. Max knew how people like him worked; they wanted you to think they were nice even when they were controlling to your face. “Yeah, of course,” he said. “I’ll call you.” He turned back to Will. “I’ll call you, too. And tell your mother to call me back.” Neither of these were questions. Will nodded, but Max recognized the nod. She did that nod, too.

Lonnie ruffled Will’s hair, then turned around and headed out the front door. When he’d closed it behind him, everyone was still for a moment, looking at each other.

As horrible as the past ten minutes had been, Max understood that right now was the perfect opportunity to fix things. Her mother could no longer deny that Lonnie was Will’s dad. And Will was here, right now, the perfect person to tell her why she needed to leave him. There would be no wedding, no family dinners with mysterious drunk Lonnie.

“I told you,” Max said first, to her mother. She wanted her friends to know she’d tried to stop this. She wasn’t a sitting duck who’d hidden this from them. Well, she was, but she _had_ tried to stop it. “You can’t deny it any more, can you?” She fought to stop her voice from shaking. She didn’t want to full on fight with her mother right now.

“Max, don’t,” Susan said, blushing. “Will, honey, I didn’t know that I was dating your father. I hope it’s okay…” Her voice trailed off, her pale cheeks growing even more flushed.

Max was irritated that her mother would claim ignorance where there most definitely was none. “You knew, what the hell,” she snapped. She turned to face in Will’s direction. “I told her he’s a bad person,” she told him. “I told her she should leave him, but she wouldn’t listen to me. She didn’t believe it coming from me.”

 _Take the hint, Will_ , she begged telepathically.

“It’s okay,” Will said.

What did that even mean? What was okay? Not this, certainly. Max tried again: “Will, you can tell her he’s a piece of shit. She deserves to know. I told her he gets drunk, but she said I was overreacting. She should know the truth.”

She felt something brushing against her arm. Lucas. He was standing close enough to touch her. She looked at him distractedly; he was shaking his head slightly. Maybe he didn’t know everything Will had told her about Lonnie. If so, she probably shouldn’t be saying it right now, in front of all of them. But this was her chance. Will had to understand.

Susan chewed on her thumbnail. Though she was technically the adult, she was not acting like it. Her face was practically scarlet, as if she had a fever.

“Max, it’s okay,” Will said again, quietly. Max was becoming more frustrated. It was not okay. Why didn’t he get what she was telling him to do?

“She doesn’t believe me that he’s terrible, but she’ll believe you-”

“Max!” Mike spoke now, interrupting her. He shook his head the same way Lucas did. Like he was trying to give _her_ a hint.

“What?” She exclaimed. “Will’s the only person who can convince her she’s delusional!”

Will shifted his feet, turning red just like Max’s mother.

“Max, he doesn’t want to,” Lucas whispered to Max. So that’s what they were trying to tell her with their hints. That Will would rather not help her stop her mother from dating Lonnie. He’d rather not get involved. Whatever happened to friends helping each other and all that shit?

“If you’re not going to help me, then leave,” she said angrily. “All of you. Just go. Sorry I wasted my time inviting you over here to hang out.”

“Come on-” Lucas started to say, but she glared at him. He didn’t finish.

It took a few seconds for her friends to grasp that she was serious, then they moved haltingly to the front door. Most of them looked confused, while Will looked apprehensive and Mike looked borderline mad. At her. Like she was the problem.

They waved bye to her, but she didn’t wave back, waiting for them to disappear. Then she let out her fury, no longer any need to contain it to get Will to help her. “I told about everything!” She shouted at her mother. “I was right! So are you going to leave him now? Or are you going to keep being an idiot?”

Susan swiped her fingers underneath her eyes. Max hadn’t even noticed that she had started crying. “Max, so what if he’s Will’s dad? Will wasn’t even agreeing with what you were saying. I know it’s hard for you to accept that I’m dating someone, but won’t you even consider that you’re overreacting?”

“Overreacting? If I’m overreacting, why are you crying?”

“Because you humiliated me in front of your friends!” Susan said, like it was obvious. Was it obvious? Max hadn’t even considered that that might have been why her mother turned so red. “You were embarrassing Will, too. I never would have thought I’d see you act like that with your friends.”

 _What?_ What her mother was saying was too… _motherly_ for Max. This wasn’t about how Max had dealt with things. It was about Lonnie, and her mother, and Will. What did it matter how Max had acted? “Stop changing the subject,” Max said slowly, no longer yelling. “You have your proof that Lonnie is Will’s dad. And he’s a bad person. Of course that’s not enough for you.”

“You don’t know that he’s a bad person,” Susan responded. “I have to think about this, Max. I’m still processing it. But I think you need to think about how you just treated your friends.”

She turned around, leaving Max alone in the living room. MTV was still on, playing Papa Don’t Preach by Madonna. Max reached down and grabbed the remote off the coffee table, turning it off. She saw the spilled Coke that had now partially stained the floorboards, and used the paper towels that were on the coffee table to clean it up. It didn’t work very well, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

Had it been wrong to pressure Will into talking about Lonnie? It had been so clear that that was how Max would fix everything. She hadn’t stopped to think if it was fair to Will. She’d just assumed he would get it. Admittedly, he hadn’t really seemed to get it.

God, she was a terrible friend. For a moment, Will had ceased to be her friend at all, her friend who had just seen his dad for the first time in god knew how long. He had been a tool to her. She’d been trying to use him, and had kicked her friends out when they even suggested she shouldn’t.

She abandoned the paper towels on the floor, not bothering to clean them up, and made her way to her bedroom. Her radio laid near her pillow, where she’d thrown it when she’d heard Lonnie talking to Will in the living room. The radio already on and tuned to the channel Mike’s radio was usually on, Max pressed the talking button and said, “Mike? Do you copy?”

Mike usually took his radio with him places, so it was reasonable to presume he had it with him though they were definitely still biking back. She waited a while, figuring even if he had heard her, he’d have to fish the radio out of his bag.

Sure enough, before she went to talk again, Mike came through, saying “I copy, Max.”

At least he answered. She knew he was irritated with her. “Can I talk to Will?” She asked, cringing at her own question for some reason. “Over.”

“Um…” Max heard static as Mike hesitated, then silence as he unpressed the button on his own radio. She held her breath, expecting Will’s voice to come over the line, but when the static returned it came with Mike’s voice still. “Sorry, Max, not right now. Maybe tomorrow. Bye.” She heard the unmistakable sound of the antenna sliding into the radio before Mike even let go of the talking button. He’d turned it off.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She was supposed to be hanging out with her friends right now. Eleven was supposed to sleep over tonight. Hell, Eleven was supposed to have slept over last night, but Max had screwed that up, too. She’d screwed that up by not talking, by ignoring her friends, but this…this was so much worse. She had been selfish. She saw it now, now that it was too late, now that her friends were biking away to hang out without her.

It was fitting that she only understood how selfish she’d been when she was suffering because of it.

* * *

**July 7, 1986**

Max was extremely stiff. She was lying in bed, the covers on the floor, face sideways on her pillow. Sunlight streamed through her window, full sunlight. She always opened her window overnight to cool down her bedroom, but it was now baking in her room, baking outside. She rolled over to look at her clock. It was 1:08pm.

What had woken her up? It was late enough that she might have just woken up naturally, but she had a feeling that something had woken her up, a memory of something that must have happened just seconds ago.

It was a knocking. There it was again, coming from inside the house. The front door. She debated ignoring it, letting whomever it was go away, but she was too curious to find out who it was. People didn’t really come to her house that often.

She fell out of bed, staggering all the way to her door, adjusting her pajamas as she went. The knocking had ceased by the time she made it to the living room, so she hurried forward to the door. Forgetting to look through the peephole to make sure it wasn’t a murderer, she threw open the door.

Will was making his way down the porch steps, his back to her. At the sound of the door being opened, he turned around, smiling somewhat nervously. She spotted Jonathan’s car parked in front of her house. None of her other friends seemed to be here. It was just Will.

“I’m glad you came,” she said, beckoning him into the house. It really was baking outside. She was still thinking sleepily, so she wished she’d had more time to prepare her apology to him. When she acted on impulse she did things like pressure her friends into talking about their alcoholic dads for her own self-serving purposes.

“Yeah, I wanted to say I’m sorry,” Will said, standing awkwardly in the same place he had last night. She directed him to follow her into the kitchen, not wanting to see him the same way she had yesterday. “I should have backed you up.”

“No,” Max said hurriedly once they were safely out of the living room. She was going to be an even worse person if she allowed Will to apologize for her own screw up. “What I did was bullshit. I wouldn’t want to talk about my stepdad on the spot, either. Not if I’d just had to see him, too.”

Will shrugged. “Wouldn’t you, though, if my mom started dating him? You would.” She was flattered at this vote of confidence from him. She didn’t know what she would do in that scenario. She thought Will was being ambitious with his faith in her.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “But you didn’t want to, so I was a jerk. I’m really sorry. So just…take my apology. Don’t, like, be the bigger person.”

Will smiled at the way she said this, and she smiled back. “Okay,” he agreed. “But, Max…if you want me to talk to your mom, I will. I can’t even believe she’s dating my dad.”

“Me neither.” Will talking to Max’s mother was the most likely thing to make her break up with Lonnie, short of Lonnie pushing Max into a wall. No, scratch that–depending on how far into the relationship Susan was, Max couldn’t even count on that being enough. She needed Will to talk to her mother.

But he was just being nice. He hadn’t wanted to yesterday, and he probably didn’t want to now, either. She was not going to be selfish twice. “No, though,” Max added, in response to Will’s offer. “It’s okay. I’ll handle it myself. It’s not like it’s your fault.”

Will frowned, looking vaguely bewildered. “It’s not your fault either.”

At this point, Max couldn’t keep track of what was and wasn’t her fault. “I know,” she said. “But I’m the master at my mother dating shitty people, so I’ll think of something.” She rolled her eyes and laughed slightly, though privately she had no idea what she was going to think of. Lonnie was a mess. This was a mess. Everything, every single thing in her entire life, was a mess.

“Are you sure?” Will sounded uncertain.

Max, too, was uncertain. She nodded anyway. “I’m sure.”

“We’re all going to hang out at Mike’s soon,” Will said, shifting the focus of the conversation. “Jonathan drove me here. He wants to talk to you, too. You should come back with us.”

Max almost said no, but she had no plans for the day and wasn’t about to dig herself into another ditch of avoiding her friends. “Let me change.”

She left Will in the living room and went to her room, quickly changing out of her pajamas into shorts and a tank top. She glanced at herself in the mirror; though she hadn’t fallen asleep for hours last night, the dark circles under her eyes weren’t as prominent as usual and she didn’t feel very tired, by nature of the fact that she had slept until one in the afternoon. She grabbed her backpack off the floor and was back in the kitchen with Will a few moments later.

They chatted about how hot it was as they exited the house and headed down the porch steps to Jonathan’s car. Max got into the backseat on the passenger’s side, behind Will.

“Hi, Max,” Jonathan said, starting the engine. “How’s it going?”

“It’s gone better, but not too bad,” Max responded, voice not serious though her answer kind of was. If Jonathan wanted to talk to her, he’d obviously been told about Lonnie dating her mother.

The car rolled forward. The quickest way back to Mike’s was to make a u-turn, but Jonathan kept going straight.

“So…your mom’s dating our dad,” Jonathan said pointedly. “She must be terrible at picking people to date.”

Max didn’t know what Jonathan knew about Neil, about all that had happened last year. She focused her eyes out the window, watching house after house go by. “She is. Guess she didn’t learn her lesson with my stepdad. People tend to make the same mistakes over and over again, though.”

“Not always,” Will said, twisting around in his seat. “Not our mom.”

“Your mom isn’t like my mom,” Max said darkly. Realizing how hopeless she sounded, she added, “I’ll take care of it, though. I know it’s you guys’ dad, but that doesn’t make it your problem. I’ve got experience.”

“Hey, so do I.” Max turned her head away from the window and saw Jonathan looking at her in the rearview mirror. His expression was reassuring. “If you want me to talk to your mom, I will. I can tell her why he’s the worst candidate for a boyfriend.”

Max sighed. The offer was tempting. “It’s okay,” she heard herself saying. “I’ll let you know, but it’s okay for now.” It wasn’t okay. She didn’t know why she wasn’t accepting Jonathan’s offer. Some part of her was nervous about it now. Like, what if Susan learned the full truth about Lonnie and didn’t care? There was some safety in believing that her mother was ignorant about Lonnie.

“Okay.” Jonathan sounded more understanding than she would have liked. “If you change your mind, tell me. And if he gets drunk around you…don’t hang around him.

“Yeah, I won’t.”

They should have been closer to Mike’s by now. Jonathan had taken the long way just to talk to her. Here she was, turning down the best possible help there was. Every so often, she thought she was different than she used to be. She thought she’d learned how to be less stupid. Then she made choices like these and questioned if she had only gotten dumber.

At Mike’s house, her friends didn’t question her about Lonnie or what had happened. They played Monopoly, which Max was the champion at. At one point, Lucas caught Max’s eye and looked at her inquisitively, but she just smiled.

* * *

**July 13, 1986**

Susan was still dating Lonnie. Though she’d told Max she was going to think about everything, she had never shared with Max what conclusion she’d come to. It was obvious, anyway, considering she had gone out with Lonnie two more times in the past week.

Max had tried not to notice. She’d been spending every spare moment with her friends, maintaining as normal of an attitude as she could. They acted like they’d totally forgotten about everything that had gone down, including the Fourth of July. Whether or not they actually had, she didn’t want to do anything crazy that might make them start thinking about her again. They watched movies, went to the arcade, and roamed Hawkins in the evenings. Eleven slept over at Max’s house, but they came back so late that they barely spent any real time there.

As long as she shoved away her constant anxiety and inner turmoil, Max had been getting along all right. That was, until earlier that morning.

It was Sunday. El, Will, and Jonathan had gone home the previous afternoon. Their leaving greatly heightened Max’s stress level. Though she had said nothing to either Jonathan or Will about her mother and Lonnie since their drive, them being in Hawkins had comforted her. She now felt like she was truly left alone with Lonnie.

Which was fitting, because that morning Susan had told Max that he was coming over for dinner.

“I will not take no for an answer,” Susan had said to Max in an impressively assertive way. “We have to sort out all this out. I think things will be better if you and Lonnie can meet each other and talk normally.”

That was a big _if_. Max had said no multiple times despite her mother’s insistence that no was not an option, but Susan hadn’t relented. She was having dinner with Lonnie, and that was final.

Not surprisingly, the day had passed far more quickly than ordinary. It was now six o’clock, and Susan had said dinner was at six-thirty. Max was still at the Wheelers’.

Mike had gotten out his comic book collection earlier that day, to prove how many he had. Comic books were now strewn across the basement, and Max’s friends were all reading various comics, barely even talking. Max was pretending to read an old Superman comic book while watching the clock with intensifying dread. She didn’t even like Superman, but she would rather read Superman comic books for the next eight hours than leave.

When the minute hand passed over the _2_ , Max put down her comic book and stood up. “I have to go have dinner with my mom,” she announced. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

Lost in their comic books, her friends called out bye to her as she left the basement through the side door. Her skateboard was outside, and soon after she was flying down the cul-de-sac, attempting to block out thoughts about Lonnie so she could enjoy skating home.

She did not succeed, and her stomach hurt by the time she reached her house. Fortunately, Lonnie’s car had not arrived yet. It figured that he would be late. Neil was always on time, but Max got the sense that Lonnie was more chaotic than Neil.

Inside, Susan told Max to set the table. Max set her own place setting first, then one beside it and one across the table. Maybe Lonnie would feel more like an outsider if he sat alone. God, was this really how she was handling all of this? She really had been full of shit when she’d told Will and Jonathan she had it under control.

Susan was cooking spaghetti. Well, had cooked spaghetti. It was done now. The clock said that it was 6:34.

“He’s late,” Max said flatly, like they weren’t both fully aware of this.

“He’s driving from Indianapolis, honey, give him a break,” Susan replied, drumming her shoe against the kitchen floor. “He’s not a stickler for time.”

Max rolled her eyes. It was 6:41 before they heard Lonnie at the door. Susan hastened to let him in, while Max remained in the kitchen.

She should have sat down before they came into the kitchen, because Lonnie sat down in Max’s spot, forcing her to sit down alone across from both of them. Susan lifted the lid off the pot of spaghetti in the middle of the table, awkwardly gesturing for Lonnie to serve himself first.

“I’m glad you can finally meet Max,” Susan said. “Under different circumstances, anyway.”

Lonnie smiled at Max. It was a smile that did not reach his eyes. “Good to see you again,” he said.

“You, too,” Max lied. She figured if she was overtly bitchy, Susan would use it as another excuse for why Max claimed Lonnie was a bad person. “How are…things?”

“Lonnie should be fully moved into Hawkins by the end of the month,” Susan announced, like this was good news. “Isn’t that exciting?”

“Very,” Max responded, unable to withhold the sarcasm from her voice.

Lonnie looked straight into Max’s eyes. “Once I’m fully moved into Hawkins, I’ll be around a lot more.”

“It must be weird to be moving back to where you used to live when you had a family,” Max said. Her mother kicked her underneath the table. “I’m sure you’re happy, though,” she added.

Lonnie again looked straight into Max’s eyes. His own eyes were glittering. “Extremely happy.”

Max stopped talking. Her mother and Lonnie maintained steady conversation throughout dinner, as if Max’s silence wasn’t important. Every so often, Susan attempted to drag Max into the conversation, but she gave one worded responses and fell silent again. Lonnie didn’t address Max at all. At least they were in agreement that it was better if she wasn’t a part of this.

Towards the end of the meal, Susan excused herself to go to the bathroom. Max sat awkwardly at the table, assuming she and Lonnie would each pretend the other didn’t exist. She was wrong.

“Listen to me for a second, kid,” Lonnie began. Max didn’t like him using the word _kid_. She was fifteen; Steve was the only person she didn’t mind calling her _kid_. “I know all this shit you’ve been telling your mom about me that you learned from my son. Whether or not it’s true, you need to learn to mind your own damn business. I know it’s hard to have your mom dating other people, but you should get over these childish fantasies that you’re going to break us up. Are we clear?”

Max swallowed. She felt threatened. “If you thought they were childish fantasies, you wouldn’t care what I tell my mom,” she said under her breath. Then she braced herself for the consequences. If this were Neil, he’d have gotten up from the table by now.

But Lonnie just laughed. It was an echoey, icy kind of laughter. It sent a shiver up her spine. “Hey, you’re a smart kid, I’ll give you that,” he said. “But trust me when I say you’re not coming between your mother and I. So get over it.”

Max didn’t have time to craft a response if she even wanted to give one. Susan had returned from the bathroom. She seemed to think Lonnie’s laughing was a good sign, which was understandable except that no reasonable person would think his laughter was friendly.

“Come on, you two,” she said encouragingly, like they were a family. It was funny because even when she and Max had been a family with Neil and Billy, she never would have been the leader of anything they did. “Let’s watch a movie.”

A movie? Max thought the evening would end with dinner. She had only gotten through dinner because she’d been waiting for the fast approaching time when she could barricade herself in her room for the rest of the night. “I’m going to go to my room, now,” she tried. Maybe her mother would spare her.

Nope. “No, come watch with us,” Susan insisted, placing her arm across Max’s shoulder and leading her into the living room with Lonnie. Max sat down on the very edge of the couch. Lonnie sat next to her, closer than she was comfortable with.

Susan went to the TV and squatted down in front of the VCR that sat below it. Max wondered if her mother had rented a movie from Family Video; had she seen Steve? Max had briefly told Steve about her mother dating Will’s dad, a couple days ago.

No, the movie was Lonnie’s, apparently. “ _The Terminator_ is one of my favorites,” he informed Max. There was a distinct difference between his tone when he spoke to her in front of Susan and when Susan had left the room.

The opening credits started playing and Susan sat down on the other side of Lonnie. He got up right after, saying, “I’m going to get a beer. Do you want one, Susan?”

Max’s mother hated beer. Which also meant that Max knew for a fact they didn’t have any beer. She started to say this, but decided not to bother.

She would have apparently looked dumb, because Lonnie returned with a bottle of beer. “I brought some,” he said, recognizing the confused look on her face. “Can’t have a movie without beer.” Max’s heart skipped a beat. Lonnie might not be the same as Neil, or as bad as Neil, but from what she had gathered from Will, Lonnie plus alcohol equalled a Neil-esque Lonnie.

It was just one beer, though. One beer didn’t do anything, right?

Lonnie got his second beer about twenty-five minutes into the movie. Max, who had seen _The Terminator_ three times and was already bored of watching it, instead focused on watching Lonnie. He drank his beer faster than she had ever seen her father or Neil drink beer. He drank it the way she drank Coke when she wanted caffeine but was in a hurry. He barely even set it on the coffee table.

The further into the movie they got, the more animated Lonnie became. It wasn’t overt at all, but Max noticed the subtle differences. At first he was just watching, then he started making comments about things going on in the movie: how one random character “looked queer”, how certain pieces of dialogue were stupid. Susan didn’t really respond to his comments, watching the movie the most intently of the three of them; she’d never seen it before.

At one point, Lonnie said he had to go to the bathroom, and got up from the couch, taking his beer with him. Susan barely looked up, but Max followed Lonnie’s path with her eyes, how he lingered in the kitchen before disappearing down the hallway. His beer had been basically empty when he left, but when he came back he barely tipped it at all in order to drink from it. He’d gotten another one. That was bad enough, but he was hiding that he’d gotten another one.

For someone as big as Lonnie, three beers might still not be a ton, but it was too many for Max.

“I’ve seen this so many times,” she said, standing up. “I’m going to my room now.”

She knew her mother probably wanted to argue, but she didn’t. The movie still playing, Max exited the living room. She was almost to her bedroom when she felt a hand on her shoulder and jumped. Lonnie had followed her.

“Your mother wants you to come finish the movie,” he said. It was amazing how the tone of his voice could change so little but so much at the same time. “You’re being rude.”

Max backed up, shaking off Lonnie’s hand. Her shoulder felt tingly where he’d touched it. “I watched most of it,” she responded, her own voice devoid of emotion. “I’m sure my mom would rather finish it with you than nobody, so leave me alone, okay?”

Lonnie rested his hand against the wall and leaned in closer to her, so that his face was about a foot from hers. “Your mother told me your stepdad gets out on parole soon, is that right? You’d think you’d be more grateful to the man who’s keeping her away from that.”

Max’s hands were sweating. She and her mother hadn’t even talked about Neil’s parole. She knew it was coming, knew her mother was dealing with things related to it, but she definitely didn’t want to talk about it with a stranger. “She’s never going back to him regardless,” Max muttered. “Not like you’re a huge upgrade.”

“Now don’t be a bitch,” Lonnie said, moving a couple inches closer to her face. She backed up, and a creepy smile formed on his face. “I’m just trying to bring your family back together. You’re even worse than your mother said, do you know that? She told me you were obstinate…rebellious. That you think you’re some kind of badass. But just because she lets you treat her like shit doesn’t mean everyone will. Welcome to the real world, Max.” He removed his hand from the wall, taking a few steps back. “Have fun in your room, kid.”

Max watched him walk down the hall and out of her line of sight. Her hands were so sweaty that they were slippery on her doorknob. She had to use two hands just to open it. She shut the door cautiously behind her, instead of slamming it like she normally did. She didn’t want to give Lonnie a reason to come back.

Wanting to drown out any conversation coming from the living room, Max selected a record off of her dresser and put it into her record player, hitting the start button. Loud music filled the room, but she turned down the volume.

There had only been around half an hour left in the movie, but more than that passed and Max didn’t hear the front door open: what would indicate that Lonnie had left. She turned down the volume on her speakers even more.

Now she heard something. Conversation. But her music was loud, so it had to be loud conversation. People didn’t talk that loudly when they were using normal voices. Max turned off her music completely and crept to her bedroom door, easing it open.

“She was totally disrespectful to me!” Max heard Lonnie saying in the living room. He wasn’t yelling, but his voice was raised. Max pushed her door open the rest of the way and tiptoed down the hall.

“She’s just unsure how to feel about all of this, Lonnie, you know that.” Susan was using her patented reassuring voice, the one she used when she was anxious that whomever she was reassuring was going to lose it at her.

Max peeked her head around the corner of the wall, earning herself a slight view into the living room. It was hard to see because the lights were dimmed, but she made out the shapes of her mother and Lonnie, standing up and facing each other.

“You’re her mother, you’re supposed to tell her how to feel about it. You’re supposed to discipline her, damn it. I would never let my kids talk to me like that.”

“Your kids who don’t even live with you?”

Max inhaled. Lonnie was getting increasingly louder.

“You’re out of line,” he snapped. “I’m going home. We’ll talk in the morning.”

“No, don’t leave before we finish this-”

“Just get out of my way.” Then Lonnie shoved Susan, the shove knocking her off balance. He pushed past her, shoulder bumping hers.

Man ran into the living room, horrified. Shoving wasn’t quite slapping, which wasn’t quite punching, but it was still bad. She didn’t think her mother and Lonnie’s relationship was like that yet. She’d figured Susan was capable of such denial because Lonnie was still acting the part of a gentleman to her face.

“Max, go back to your room,” Susan said frantically, rushing forward and gently pushing Max back in the direction of the kitchen. “Don’t cause trouble.”

“Me cause trouble?” Max gasped. “He just shoved you, Mom, what are you-”

“What did I tell you?” Lonnie said pointedly to Susan. He was standing by the door like he was about to leave. “She runs amok and you let her. I’m trying to help you. Call me when you want to talk about it.”

Max and Susan both stared at Lonnie until the door slammed behind him. Max backed away from her mother, heart thumping with anxiety like it had after she’d pushed the boy at skee ball on the Fourth of July. “How can you let him talk to you like that?” She exclaimed. “How can you let him talk about me?”

Susan pursed her lips, folding her arms over her chest. She seemed just as stressed as Max. “He didn’t mean it the way you think he did,” she said slowly. But there was zero certainty in her voice. “I’m going to bed,” she continued absently.

Max didn’t tell her goodnight. She went over to the couch and collapsed onto it, dropping her head against one of the pillows.

Ow. There was something hard underneath it. She lifted her head and reached her arm under the pillow, pulling out what was under it.

A bottle.

So Lonnie hadn’t had three beers.

He’d had four.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another disclaimer that this chapter is pretty long and I finished it late so I didn't comb through it editing it! Sorry for any typos. As with the 4th of July chapter I hope it reads okay because I am just too exhausted to edit it at the moment.
> 
> Speaking of typos, I accidentally wrote "Lonnie ruffled Neil's hair" instead of "Lonnie ruffled Will's hair" and didn't realize it for like a solid forty minutes. Just going to turn this story into a Lonnie/Neil story okay cool????


	10. Questions

**July 14, 1986**

Max had set her alarm for six o’clock in the morning. Last night, she had been determined to talk to her mother in the morning, to not go the entire week without talking about Lonnie. Now, having only had around two and a half hours of sleep, she was less determined. But she was awake, and her alarm was going off, so she might as well follow through with her plan.

She found her mother in the kitchen, drinking coffee and paging through the newspaper. Max hadn’t seen her mother at this time of morning since school had ended, which was over a month ago. It was weird to see her living her life. Max didn’t often think about her mother having a life much beyond being gone and dating Lonnie. She didn’t consider that when her mother was gone, she was at work chatting with coworkers and helping people at the bank and earning money.

“Why are you awake so early?” Susan asked, glancing up from her newspaper. It was cold in the kitchen, and Max shivered in her pajama shirt and shorts.

“To talk to you,” Max said, sliding into the chair across from Susan. “Mom, he shoved you last night. You told me you were done with dating people like that.” This was not quite true. Susan had said she was done with Neil. She hadn’t made any generalizations, per se, but Max thought they were implied.

Susan laid her paper on the table, sighing. She was wearing less makeup than she usually did to work, and the lack of foundation made her appear paler. “He did not _shove_ me, honey. He just wanted to get around me. We were arguing. People argue. Half the time you and I talk to each other we’re arguing.”

The last comment stung slightly. It reminded Max of what Lonnie had said to her, what Lonnie had been saying to Susan. That she was obstinate. That she treated her mother like garbage. Max knew she had a short temper when it came to her mother, that she talked to her differently than she talked to anyone else. But she’d never heard it spelled out by anyone before. Even if it was Lonnie who said it, it was kind of true.

That did not mean Susan’s excuses were anything less than pitiful. Well, a third party might describe them as pitiful. Max would describe them as infuriating, because they affected her, too. “He had a lot of beer,” she said. This was a good angle to approach her argument from. Her mother did not know how much beer Lonnie had drunk. “He had four beers, and he wanted you to think he only had two. Only alcoholics do that.”

If they were getting technical, Max did not know whether or not Lonnie was an alcoholic. She’d never heard Will or anyone else use that specific word when talking about him, just that he drank a lot. But either way, the point was that hiding your alcohol consumption was suspicious.

Even Susan seemed to think so, because she raised her eyebrows slightly at this information. “Are you sure? I only saw him have two. He wasn’t drunk.”

“I’m absolutely sure he had four,” Max said. She was, because she had searched the recycling bin in the kitchen and the living room until she found all four empty beer bottles. “He was acting different after he started drinking, didn’t you notice? Even if he wasn’t drunk.” Max didn’t know where the line of drunk versus not drunk was drawn.

Susan looked pensive. “I know why you’re worried about all of this, honey,” she said after a moment. “I know Lonnie isn’t a perfect person. I’d like to think that I know him better than you do, but I know that. There’s something else we should talk about.”

Something else? They had barely scraped the surface of talking about Lonnie. “If you know he’s not a perfect person, why are you still dating him?” Max protested. Hearing the flaw in what she’d said, she added, “You know what I mean.”

“I have to go to work soon, just let me talk, okay?” Susan took a deep breath like she was scared to talk about whatever it was she was about to talk about. She had Max’s full attention now. “I got a call from Neil’s parole officer a couple weeks ago. He’s scheduled to be released on parole on the twenty-fourth.”

Max closed her fingers around the edge of her chair, kicking her feet softly against the table legs. So that was why her mother was scared to talk. Apparently she had been scared for weeks. Max didn’t know whether or not she should be mad that her mother had withheld the information about the call from her. She decided not to be, because she cared more about what this meant. “Is he coming here?” She asked. She was pretty sure he was, but her mother had never let her in on the details. She’d always said not to worry about it. But now that it was so soon, Max thought she had the right to worry about it.

“He isn’t allowed to be around you,” Susan replied, like this was the most important part of her answer. Max already knew this; because Neil’s child abuse conviction was a felony, seeing Max was a violation of his parole. She wasn’t asking if she had to see Neil, she was asking if he was coming in general.

Seeing the unsatisfied look on Max’s face, Susan continued, “He’s coming to get his stuff, yes. But his parole officer said if I was uncomfortable with it, someone could go with him.”

“Are you?”

“He’s just getting his stuff, Max. He’s not going to hurt me. I know he did awful things to us, but he’s been in prison.”

“Okay, so I don’t have to see him and you’re not remotely worried about him coming here? Good talk,” Max responded sarcastically. “Let’s talk about Lonnie again, then.”

Susan closed her eyes, like she was willing God to calm her down. “I’m trying to explain, Max,” she said. “I don’t know how to tell you things when you judge everything I say and do. Of course I’m worried about him coming here. I’m terrified.”

The bluntness of this admission was disarming to Max. She focused on her mother, uncomfortable with the honesty. She was so used to her mother pretending things weren’t happening around her and that everything was okay. Max didn’t know how to handle this change. “What?” She prompted, when she realized her mother wasn’t going to go on until Max said something.

“I get that you don’t like Lonnie. But you’re not the only person who has feelings. I’ve been nervous about Neil coming back all summer. I thought if I was dating someone else, he’d understand that I’ve moved on. It feels safer. Don’t you understand?”

More honesty that made Max cringe involuntarily. She did understand. But she didn’t want to understand. She didn’t want to empathize with her mother. Did that make her a horrible person? Both she and her mother had been through a lot. Max knew that she herself wasn’t doing well. She had always believed herself to be emotionally stronger than Susan, but yet Max expected her mother to make rational choices all of the time while she fell apart. It wasn’t fair, but Max didn’t want to think that it wasn’t fair.

“I just want you to break up with Lonnie,” Max said coldly. “If you’re not going to talk about _that_ , I don’t want to talk.”

Inside, her stomach twisted with guilt. Outside, she maintained a flat expression.

Susan pushed her chair back and stood up. Max saw that her hands were shaking. More guilt surged through Max.

“I just can’t do this sometimes,” Susan said softly, like she was only half saying it to Max. “So Lonnie had four beers. You drank my wine.”

Max had told her mother she’d just dropped the bottle. It had not been questioned. Had she seriously known? Max didn’t even know what to say.

“Yes, I knew,” Susan confirmed, grabbing her work bag off of the kitchen counter. “I just didn’t want to fight with you. Seems like it’s hard to avoid that no matter what I do.”

Max stared after her mother as she left the kitchen and then the house. There was too much to digest. Her mother was dating Lonnie because she was scared of Neil. That made sense but was not a good enough reason for Max. It also meant Susan was unlikely to break up with Lonnie, at least for a while. Even if he was an alcoholic. And speaking of alcohol, her mother knew she’d gotten drunk. What other things did her mother want to punish her for, but didn’t? She’d always known her mother’s passivity was what made her be so lenient with Max, but there had never been such clear proof of it.

It was so early that Max could go back to bed and sleep for four more hours before she went to hang out with her friends. But she didn’t feel tired anymore. Well, her eyes did–they hurt from tiredness. But she knew from experience that she was too keyed up to be able to sleep right now.

She went back to her bedroom and changed out of her pajamas. She grabbed a jacket out of her closet because it was probably somewhat cold outside, if the temperature of the kitchen was any indication, and slid one strap of her backpack over her shoulder. In the bathroom, she ran a comb through her hair and brushed her teeth before heading to the front of the house. She didn’t really know where she should go at six-fifteen on a Monday morning, but she didn’t feel like staying in the house.

Being outside at this time reminded her of school mornings all last year. Her feet propelled her skateboard along the familiar path to school, and she allowed herself to be carried that way. It was bound to empty so early on a summer morning, anyway.

But when she was close to Hawkins High School, she didn’t skate into the high school parking lot but instead turned and followed the sidewalk as it curved into Hawkins Middle School. She hadn’t been there in a while; she and her friends would occasionally go see Mr. Clarke during the school year, but they hadn’t gone since maybe April. As she had anticipated, it was deserted.

She skated towards the front of the school, stopping herself with her foot at the front steps. She and her friends used to eat lunch on the steps. She remembered the first time, how happy she’d been that they were including her. Then they had told her she couldn’t come with them, that she wasn’t in their party. The memory was so old, but she could still conjure that feeling of loneliness. She’d been convinced she would never have friends like them, that leaving California had ruined whatever good things remained in her life. Eventually, of course, Mike had accepted her, and it was crazy to think now that she once wasn’t best friends with all of them.

Did she take it for granted? She climbed the steps and sat down, leaning against the door of the school. In her group of friends, she was the badass one, the one that did what she wanted to do and said what she wanted to say. She had been like that when she first met them, too. She had gotten mad at Lucas, had told him she didn’t want to be friends with them when they rejected her. But that was when they’d rejected her. The only person who did any rejecting now was her. She assumed they knew how much they meant to her, how much she relied on their friendship to get her through anything. She assumed they knew, but she didn’t exactly tell them.

She pulled her knees to her chest and balanced her skateboard in between, wheels sticking out on either side of her legs. The sun was coming up steadily, a patch of sunlight hovering over Max and warming her slightly. It was relaxing, sitting there under the yellow of the light. She closed her eyes.

As always, it was easier to sleep away from her own room and her own bed. She didn’t know that would translate to sitting outside the door of Hawkins Middle, but she didn’t fight it when she felt herself nodding off. She let her knees slide back down, her skateboard now resting on her lap, and shifted herself so that she was more underneath the sunlight.

“Max?”

She blinked her eyes open, surprised. Mr. Clarke stood over her, keys jangling in his hand. There was a thick binder tucked underneath his arm.

“Oh shit, sorry,” Max said, grabbing onto the railing to pull herself up to a standing position. Then, remembering he was a teacher, she said “sorry” again for swearing.

“I must admit it’s a surprise to see you here,” Mr. Clarke said. He did look surprised. “Were you waiting for somebody?”

Max didn’t know who she could possibly be waiting for at a middle school at this time of morning. “No, my mom works early so I got up with her and was just hanging out.” It was probably a good idea to emphasize that she hadn’t, like, stayed here all night. “I’ll go home.”

“There’s no rule that says you can’t be here,” Mr. Clarke told her. “I was just going to set up part of my classroom. No need to leave.”

The mysticism of the empty school had kind of been ruined, though. Mr. Clarke started unlocking the front door to the school and Max figured she’d better leave. But then she was struck with an idea; after all, Mr. Clarke was an unknowing third party.

“Wait, I have a…scientific question,” Max said, causing Mr. Clarke to turn around. She smiled angelically, understanding that a good attitude was important for this question to not seem suspicious. “My friends and I were…debating this, but since none of us have _obviously_ ever drunk anything, we didn’t know. How many beers would it take to get someone drunk?”

Okay, yeah, it was a weird question even when she put it like that. But Mr. Clarke was always willing to answer weird questions even when he didn’t understand them. He tilted his head slightly, confused, but said, “Well, it would depend on who was drinking them. Do you mean you? Because it probably wouldn’t take very many-”

“No, not me,” Max said quickly. “Like, an adult. Man. For example. An adult man.”

“Oh. Well, uh, it would still depend on how much he weighed and what his tolerance was. Are we talking about someone in particular?”

Max hesitated. Mr. Clarke added, “You know, I heard about your family situation last year. Is someone drinking more than they-”

“No!” Max interjected, maybe a little too rapidly. “It’s a purely hypothetical question. I said it would depend, too, and they said it didn’t. So I was right. That’s all.”

“Oh, okay.” Mr. Clarke had finished opening the door and held it open, but didn’t go inside. “Are you sure that’s all?”

Max nodded. “Yeah. But so, like, if someone had, say, four beers. That wouldn’t be enough?”

“Probably not. It would probably take more like seven or eight, but it depends on a lot of factors. Does that answer your question?”

Seven or eight. So of course Lonnie hadn’t been drunk. But four was half that, so the alcohol had definitely affected Lonnie. “It answers it, yeah. Thanks. I should probably go home now.”

“Okay, have a good summer,” Mr. Clarke said. She appreciated that he had answered her question despite clearly wondering why she was asking it.

She went down the stairs in quick succession and dropped her skateboard onto the ground, skating off. She remembered what Jonathan had said about not being around Lonnie when he was drunk. If she had to see Lonnie again, which she hoped she didn’t, she’d learn how to count beers. If Susan was really with Lonnie because she was anxious about Neil’s parole, she might leave him after that mess died down. Max was just going to have to hold out for that.

Max wished she had a watch like Dustin so she could know what time it was. It was obviously still far too early to hang out with her friends, but she didn’t want to go home. If only Eleven hadn’t left; when Eleven was here, she always had someone to hang out with, and Susan would never have invited Lonnie over.

Max was frustrated with herself for being as shaken up about last night as she was. She’d experienced so much worse in her lifetime. She’d been punched to the point of having bruises that didn’t fade for two weeks, and had gone to school the day after getting them. Sure, she was always on edge back then, but she had gotten used to it. She felt like she’d gone soft if just seeing Lonnie push her mother had rattled her so much. He hadn’t even hurt her, he’d just been rude.

Max did math in her head to try to figure out what time it was. She had left her house around fifteen minutes after six, and it took around twenty minutes to skateboard to Hawkins Middle. She’d been at Hawkins Middle for around fifteen minutes. So it must be close to seven. There was one person who was up at seven: Steve.

Family Video opened at eight, but Steve worked the opening shift and got there at seven. She didn’t fully know what he did for an entire hour, but he might let her help him. She mentally plotted the path to the video store and took the next right turn.

She zoned out on the way there, impressed with herself for knowing all of the roads in Hawkins so well. She was going to have an easy time when she finally learned how to drive. Closer to downtown Hawkins, there were more cars on the road, making the day feel slightly less like a weird horror movie where nobody was around.

Steve’s car was parked in the parking lot of Family Video, along with a few other random cars Max didn’t recognize. She skated up to the entrance of the store, knocking on the glass door. A moment later, Steve’s face appeared through the glass. He unlocked the door and stepped outside.

“What in god’s name are you doing here so early?” He questioned. He was holding a broom, which he used to prop the door open. So that was what he did before the store opened.

“Can I come in?” Max asked, not actually answering his question. “I’ll help you or whatever. I can probably do your job better than you.”

“Just going out on a limb here, but I’m pretty sure that’s against the rules,” Steve said. “It’s barely seven. Don’t you usually, like, stay up until seven?”

The last time Max and her friends had been at the video store, she had been talking about how late she stayed up to her friends, acting like it was intentional rather than a product of her horrific insomnia. “Come on, just let me in. Do you think Keith even cares, seriously?”

Steve gave her a piercing look, but gestured for her to follow him inside the store. “Keith doesn’t own this place, just so you know,” he said. “So if someone finds out about this, you told me you got permission from someone and it’s entirely your fault. Is that clear?”

“Yeah, whatever,” Max agreed. “What do you want me to do? Watch the security footage?” Steve raised his eyebrows at her. “I’m kidding!”

Steve handed her the broom he was holding. “Sweep,” he commanded. “I’ll organize the shelves.”

The last time Max had used a broom had been last fall, when Neil randomly ordered her to sweep the entire house. He’d then told her she was doing it wrong and that she was going to be a worthless housewife. At least she now knew how to sweep.

“So tell me,” Steve said after a couple minutes of labor-filled silence. “What inspired you to get up before the birds today?”

Max rolled her eyes. “It’s not _that_ early.”

“Yeah? You know what I mean.”

“My mom leaves for work super early,” Max explained. “I just wanted to talk to her so I got up.”

“So what did you want to talk to your mom about?”

Of course he would ask. She had asked Mr. Clarke about the beers just so that she didn’t have to bring up what had happened with anyone she was close with. She knew they wouldn’t understand. As much as the whole thing bothered her, she was able to look at it more objectively than her friends ever could. Steve was older and more capable of understanding complex situations, but people were always against waiting out bad situations when they weren’t the ones in them.

“Just her boyfriend,” Max said, going for the angle of slight honesty while withholding certain details. “And my stepdad and stuff.” She said it casually, like that would ever be a casual thing to talk about.

“Your stepdad? Like, your stepdad who’s in prison?” Steve paused, holding a VHS copy of _The NeverEnding Story_.

“Not for long,” Max sighed. “He’s not my stepdad anymore, anyway. The divorce got finalized. But he’s getting released on parole.”

“Shit, it feels like he just got locked up.” Max knew what Steve meant, but she also didn’t quite agree. November felt like ages ago. She felt like she’d been living an entirely different life then, which objectively she had been. “He’s not going to see you, is he?”

“No, he’s not allowed to. But he’s going to come back to Hawkins to take all his stuff out of our house. My mom’s all freaked out about it. Not a big surprise.”

Steve frowned. “I mean, you gotta cut her some slack. He’s a piece of shit and he’s coming back to your house.”

“Yeah, well, I think that’s why she’s dating Will’s dad,” Max said. _I think_ , like her mother hadn’t told her exactly that. She didn’t know why she minimized everything she said. It was like if she was definite about something, it became truer. “She thinks if she’s dating someone, she’ll be protected from him or something. It’s total bullshit.”

“I guess it kind of makes sense,” Steve said. Max also thought it made sense, though she hadn’t said it. “But if he’s a really shitty person then it’s definitely not a good enough reason to date him.”

“He is,” Max responded darkly without fully considering what she was saying. She stared down at the floor, at the pile of dirt she’d made with the broom.

“Hang on, did he do something? Last time you just said you saw him the one time.” Steve stopped stocking again, watching her with squinted eyes.

Max glanced up at him but then lowered her eyes back to the floor, shaking her head slightly. “No. He’s just a jerk.”

“Did you see him again?”

Max shrugged noncommittally. “He came over for dinner last night,” she admitted.

“Did he do something?” Steve asked again.

 _He drank four beers and shoved my mother_. Yeah, it would sound worse if she said it out loud. She knew it was bad. She was anxious because it was bad, wasn’t she? But she couldn’t talk about it. “He just told me he and my mom were never going to break up,” she said. “But I think after my stepdad’s gone for real, she might. So I’m not too worried.”

“Yeah, you don’t look worried at all,” Steve responded, raising his eyebrows at her. “If he starts to act like…well, you know, don’t hang around him, okay?”

The same advice as Jonathan’s. Max didn’t know why everyone thought she was an idiot who loved to spend time with crazy people. That was her mother, not her. “No shit. I don’t love when people put their fists through my face, believe it or not,” she said sarcastically.

The comment seemed to pain Steve vaguely, but he shook it off and just said, “Jesus, just offering some friendly guidance.”

She scowled. “So you think I’m a bitch, too?”

“What?” The bewilderment in his tone was comforting. “Who told you that you were a bitch?”

There was a random paper bag on the floor, and she pushed it hard with the end of the broom. “Who do you think? Will’s dad. Oh, and my own mother.”

“Come on, that’s bull,” Steve assured her. “Well, most of the time.”

She bent over and picked up the paper bag, throwing it at Steve. The air caught it and it didn’t even come close to hitting him.

“If you want to be a perfect angel, then stop screwing around and help me,” Steve said, picking up the paper bag himself and throwing it back at her.

She laughed, sweeping it into her pile, and went to get the dustpan.

“Hey,” Steve said suddenly, just long enough after their conversation for her to have assumed it was over. “My offer from last year still stands, by the way. If you’re scared to be at your house for whatever reason, or you just don’t want to be, you can call me, okay kid?”

She was crouched on the floor, sweeping dirt into the dustpan, but she turned her head so she could meet his gaze. His expression was calm, but she recognized the heavily veiled concern deep within his eyes. She nodded. “Okay.”

“Good. I swear to god, whoever’s writing your life story needs to give you a break.”

After that, they sank back into a comfortable silence. Max focused on cleaning, refusing to let any other thoughts consume her.

* * *

**July 18, 1986**

According to Dustin, it was the hottest day of the year. Max believed him, so she didn’t know why they were sitting in the baking sun at the top of the hill. Well, she did: Will had told Mike on the phone that he had something super exciting to tell them and they should talk over the radio today at two o’clock in the afternoon.

However, when they talked over Cerebro to Will, he was presumably sitting in his shaded bedroom and not at the top of a hill being burned to death by UV rays. To be fair, Max didn’t know for sure where he talked on his radio. None of them had ever been to the Byers’ new house.

Max sat criss-cross-applesauce on the grass, hair draped over her back to hopefully prevent her neck from getting sunburned. As always, Dustin sat the closest to Cerebro, holding the talking piece. Lucas and Max took turns holding the water bottle they shared, earning jealous looks from Mike, who’d forgotten to bring water. Max had allowed him one drink, but no more. She was the most likely of all of them to get skin cancer and even if drinking water was not a preventative measure, it would be worse to die of dehydration and skin cancer simultaneously.

“Did he say anything about what he wanted to tell us?” Lucas questioned Mike for the fifth time. His voice sounded dead. They were all melting.

“For the last time, no,” Mike responded.

“Hurry up, Dustin,” Max said, grabbing Lucas’s wrist to look at the time on his watch. It was four minutes after two.

“Will is the one who’s late,” Dustin complained. Max knew this, she hadn’t been deaf to the three times Dustin had asked if Will copied. She was just impatient.

“Sorry, Dustin, I copy!” Will’s voice came crackling through the radio. Finally.

“We’re about to die of heat stroke,” Dustin said, “what did you want to tell us? Over.”

“Sorry, I forgot. I’ll be quick. But you guys have to be excited, okay? Over.”

“We’re excited!” Max, Lucas, and Mike all shouted in the background as Dustin said it at a normal audio level.

“Okay, my mom called all of your moms–well, except for Max’s, but I’m sure she’ll let her come, anyway–but-”

“Let her come? Come where?” Dustin broke the rule of radioing and interrupted Will. Max glanced at Mike to see if he was annoyed. Yeah, he looked annoyed. “Sorry, Will, go on. Over.”

“You guys are all invited to come stay with us next weekend,” Will said excitedly, this bit of information coming louder through the radio like he’d raised his voice. “You can come up Friday and stay until Tuesday morning. Over.”

Max forgot momentarily how hot she was. Neil’s parole was up on Thursday. This was perfect timing. Almost too perfect, actually. But either way, they were going to get to see Eleven and Will sooner than she thought they were.

“Are you serious?” Dustin exclaimed into the radio, sounding even more excited than Will. Max felt just as excited.

“I’m totally serious,” Will responded. Max, Lucas, and Mike all got up and ran over to where Dustin was, leaning in.

“This is going to be awesome!” Lucas said, trying to grab the talking piece from Dustin, who shook him off and made a face at him.

“Yeah,” Max agreed enthusiastically.

“Do you think your mom will let you come, Max?” Will asked through the radio.

If Max’s mother didn’t punish her for drinking wine, she would definitely allow Max to go stay with her friends. “For sure,” Max said confidently.

“I can’t believe your mom is letting us come,” Mike said. Dustin was just holding the talking button down at this point. “We’ve got to make this the best weekend ever.”

Dustin pushed them all away from the radio and told Will that they were going to go before they got so sunburned they couldn’t come next week. Max went and gathered up her backpack and hers and Lucas’s water bottle. A minute later, they were on their way down the hill.

Lucas walked next to Max, their feet thudding down heavily as they walked down the steep incline. They continued to pass the water bottle back and forth until Lucas tripped on a pothole and accidentally splashed it all over Max. She took it from him and zipped it up in her backpack. Because she’d paused while doing this, the gap between them and Mike and Dustin increased in distance.

“So,” she said knowingly, voice lowered so her other friends wouldn’t hear, “it’s funny that we’re invited the same weekend my stepdad gets released from prison.”

“Oh, is it?” Lucas said innocently. “I didn’t think about that.”

“Mmhm. Weird coincidence, don’t you think?” She smirked at the look on his face. She hadn’t known for sure he’d had something to do with this, but she did now.

Lucas was the only person Max had told about Neil’s parole, at least in detail. Her friends knew he was getting out of prison soon, but not when or that he was definitely coming to Hawkins. She had told Lucas that he was coming on the twenty-fourth, however.

“I _might_ have mentioned it to my mom,” Lucas said. He did not look guilty about it. “I told her it would be nice if you didn’t have to be around when he came back. So she _might_ have thought of this.”

“Might?”

“Okay, probably. But aren’t you excited to go?”

Max thought that was clear. She hadn’t meant that she was upset with Lucas for being responsible for this. “Yeah, of course. I’m glad you told your mom if she told Joyce to invite us.”

Lucas slowed his walking speed a bit so he could take his eyes off his feet and looked at her, smiling. “Good. I thought you might be mad or something. I didn’t tell anyone else.”

Did she really get mad that easily? She cringed. “I’m not mad. I’m…sorry.”

Lucas’s smile turned into a frown. “Sorry? Why are you sorry?”

She took a deep breath and said, “Because I’m so mean sometimes. I don’t mean to be. You can tell me when I’m being annoying, okay?”

“You’re not annoying,” Lucas protested. She looked sideways at him. “Okay, sometimes you’re a little, um, abrupt. But you’re going through a lot right now. I understand.”

Max smiled sadly. “Because you’re too nice. Just tell me when I’m being annoying, seriously. Do you promise?”

“Okay, I promise.”

She stepped a bit closer to him so their shoulders were touching as they walked. She didn’t care that they were both sweating from the ninety-five degree heat. “I don’t say it all the time,” she said, more quietly than she’d been speaking before, “but I love you. A lot.”

She knew he was trying to play it cool, but an ever so slight pink tinge appeared on his cheeks that was probably not from the heat. “I love you a lot, too, Max,” he said.

She paused again, this time to unzip her backpack and take the water bottle back out. She handed it to him. “One more chance,” she said.

“Wow, you really are trying to be nice,” Lucas joked, removing the top and taking a drink of water.

She rolled her eyes and snatched the bottle back from him to drink out of it herself.

Dustin and Mike were probably close to forty feet away from them by now. Dustin twisted around and shouted back up to them, “HURRY UP AND STOP MAKING OUT!”

“SHUT UP!” Max shouted down to him. She looked at Lucas and they both started laughing, quickening their pace a bit.

She couldn’t wait until next weekend. A place where there was no Neil, no Lonnie, and all of her friends was exactly where she wanted to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Never fear, there is more Lonnie to come, everyone's favorite :) <3 And loads more drama to come, also everyone's favorite!!!!!!
> 
> Also I just learned today that Charlie Heaton is British and I feel like a terrible Stranger Things stan oh my god
> 
> And about "whoever’s writing your life story needs to give you a break" I'M SORRY I THOUGHT THIS WAS FUNNY


	11. Hell

**July 24, 1986**

Max’s suitcase was open on the floor of her bedroom, half full. Her mother had a tendency to overpack, so she was trying to be sparing with what she brought. It was hard to know what she would need, though. Realistically, staying with Will and El was much like them staying in Hawkins; the Byers lived in Illinois, in a house. It wasn’t like they were going to Palm Beach. But Max hadn’t been away from Hawkins since she’d lived in California, if you didn’t count the night she’d spent in a bus station in St. Louis. It was cool to travel anywhere.

Her record player playing music at low volume, Max bounced around her bedroom, picking up various items and questioning if she should bring them. It was late: after ten o’clock at night. But Steve was picking her up tomorrow at seven, so she wouldn’t have time to finish packing in the morning.

Max heard the front door open. Her mother was home. She’d been enjoying the evening to herself, but she supposed it wasn’t too different to have her mother here as long as she stayed away from Max. Which she always did. They’d been arguing more and more, and it was impossible for them to talk about anything but Lonnie and occasionally Neil. When they talked about Lonnie, Max would tell Susan to break up with him and when she inevitably said something other than _yes, I will break up with my terrible boyfriend_ Max would storm out of the room. When they talked about Neil, Max just sat there and said nothing.

The footsteps coming down the hall sounded heavier than Susan’s. That was weird. Max didn’t have time to process if she should be concerned about this before she heard the doorknob of her bedroom door turning. There had been no knock. Her heart lurched with panic that she hadn’t even registered in her head yet. She grabbed her radio–the closest thing to her–and held it over her head like a weapon.

“No need for that, it’s just me,” Lonnie said, his face appearing in the darkness of the doorway. Her panic did subside, but only a little. It wasn’t a psycho serial killer, but Lonnie wasn’t much better.

“My mom isn’t here,” Max choked out, still in a state of shock. “How did you get in?”

Lonnie held up a key. “Your mom said I could come over after work. Figured I’d let myself in.”

“She gave you a key?” Max didn’t even think Neil had had a key to their house in California before he got married to her mother. He’d been obsessed with being the perfect gentleman and had refused to do things like sleep over before he and Susan were married. Lonnie and her mother had been dating for less than four months.

“Looks like that, doesn’t it?” Lonnie’s eyes moved away from Max’s face and down the floor where her suitcase was. “Packing to go see my son?”

“Yeah, must be sad that I can do that but not you,” Max said, dropping the radio back onto her dresser. “Then again, you probably prefer it that way.”

Lonnie smiled the smile that Max was beginning to despise above all things. “Must be sad to know your own mother is so happy to get rid of you.”

Max wasn’t dumb, and she knew Lonnie was probably full of shit about three quarters of the time. That didn’t stop her from narrowing her eyes at him and demanding, “What do you mean?” She knew she shouldn’t indulge him, but there was something in the way he talked that made this difficult.

“Oh, you know,” Lonnie responded slowly, “With everything going on, of course she’s relieved to get you off her hands for a few days. She doesn’t need you complicating everything. Does she not tell you this stuff? I guess she wouldn’t, seeing as she’s scared of you.”

God, he was getting under her skin and she couldn’t let him. She’d been having a good evening, looking forward to getting away and to seeing Eleven and Will. It wasn’t fair that he should ruin it by trying to manipulate her like this. But…was it pure manipulation? _She’s scared of you_. No, her mother was scared of Neil, had been scared of Billy sometimes, but not Max. Right?

“Fuck off,” she snapped at Lonnie, unhappy with how much her voice was wavering. “I’m not the one who gets drunk all the time. And just so _you know_ , my mom is probably going to leave you after Neil’s gone for good. She told me so herself.”

The smile on Lonnie’s face turned into a flat line. “Is that so? Then tell me, Max, why your mother told me that she’s in love with me? And gave me a key to your house?”

In love with him? It had been four months. Max didn’t really know the timeline for love when it came to adult relationships. But somehow she knew that Lonnie wasn’t lying about that. Her mother really had said she loved him. Did she love him? She’d told Max she knew he wasn’t perfect, implied his place in her life was temporary. Max always blamed her mother for being in denial, but was she the one who was guilty of it now?

“That’s what I thought,” Lonnie said when Max didn’t respond to him. He stepped further into her room. “I’m afraid I might be around for the long haul, kid. Better get used to this.”

“Fuck _off_!” Max exclaimed again, head swimming. She didn’t know if she was upset or angry. She felt an insane mix of both, so intense it might explode out of her at any minute. “Go to hell! She is not going to marry you, you’re a fucking alcoholic and-”

Lonnie took more steps into her room, stopping a foot from her right when she said the word _alcoholic_. “Might want to watch how you speak to me,” he said icily, cutting her off.

Max’s words caught in her throat but the emotion that had accompanied them remained strong. Her face was extremely hot and her legs felt unsteady. Her depth perception seemed off, Lonnie’s face looming closer to her than perhaps it really was. One of his hands rested on her dresser, inches from her shoulder. She had no way out. He was between her and the door. Panic surged through her like before, but this time she knew there wasn’t a psycho serial killer breaking in her room. All of this, all that she felt, was because of Lonnie.

She saw Lonnie’s hand raising and she squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to see it happen. The first time was the worst. “Go ahead and hit me,” she said, forcing her voice to sound strong, even if it was contradictory to the fact that her eyes were closed. “You’re a horrible person and I don’t care what you do, just fucking hit me.”

She braced for impact, but none came. She opened her eyes slowly. Lonnie’s hand was raised, yes, but only because he was rubbing his chin with his hand. His smile had returned. “I’m not going to hit you,” he told her. She hated herself for relaxing slightly just because he said it. “You’ve got the wrong idea about me, Max. Seems like you’ve got the wrong idea about a lot of people. Someone probably should knock your head in, because it looks like you’re totally fucked up in there. But I’m not going to give you such an easy out.”

Max let out her breath, hoping she didn’t look as pathetic as she felt. She heard a door shut somewhere other than her room. Her mother was home for real now.

As smoothly as he’d come, Lonnie backed up so that he was standing in Max’s doorway again. A moment later, Susan appeared next to him. She looked nervous to see them interacting.

“What were you guys talking about?” She asked with obviously fake nonchalance.

_Your boyfriend is a sociopath._

“Nothing,” Max said. “Nothing important.”

Lonnie nodded, his steely gaze lingering over her before he turned his attention to her mother. “We were just chatting. Like she said.”

“Oh. Uh, that’s nice.” Susan glanced uncertainly between Lonnie and Max. “Let’s let Max finish packing.”

She stepped out of the doorway and into the hall, closing Max’s door behind her and Lonnie. Max crept forward until she was at the door, and pressed her ear against it. Were they going to talk about her? Was her mother going to tell Lonnie how right he was about her? How right he was that Max was fucked up in her head and how glad she was that she had him?

The sound of Susan’s bedroom door shutting was audible. Her bedroom? Adults did only one thing in bedrooms.

They couldn’t. Maybe _that_ didn’t mean that much to most people. Billy had had sex with a different girl every week. But Max knew it meant something to her mother. Susan always told Max she should wait for when she was in love. Well, according to Lonnie, Susan was in love with him.

Max threw open her bedroom door. She needed to finish packing. It was late. But she felt claustrophobic in her bedroom. She moved down the hall to the kitchen, walking like she had when she’d first been tipsy.

Speaking of tipsy…a six pack of beers sat out, on the dining table. Lonnie must have brought them. Why did he have to bring a whole six pack for himself? So his plan for the night was to come over, let himself in, manipulate Max, have sex with her mother, and then get drunk.

She felt tears on her cheeks. She was pretty sure they were tears of anger. She was angry, so angry, at Lonnie and at her mother and at herself. She was always angry at herself for everything, but this was Lonnie’s fault. He should be the one crying.

She lifted the six pack of beers by the cardboard handle and held it in front of her. The beers clinked slightly at the motion.

It would show him how she felt about him, that was for sure.

She elevated the beers a bit higher and then threw them hard onto the kitchen floor with all the power contained in her arm. The noise of the crash was so loud that she covered her ears with her hands, watching beer spill out of the shattered bottles and onto the tile floor. It was even messier than when she’d broken the wine bottle.

Hands still covering her ears, she didn’t hear the footsteps coming from her mother’s bedroom. She only saw her mother and Lonnie standing in front of the broken bottles and spilled beer, both looking horrified. Max removed her hands from her ears.

“Max, what in the world?” Susan gasped.

She and Lonnie were both fully clothed, so maybe they hadn’t been having sex. Max didn’t care. Well, she definitely cared, but she didn’t care that she had smashed the bottles on the floor anyway.

“Remember what I said about her being out of control?” Lonnie muttered to Susan, but loud enough that Max didn’t even have to strain her ears to understand what he’d said.

“I am not out of control,” she said, fighting not to yell. Yelling was not controlled.

“Did you do this on purpose?” Susan’s eyes were wide. Max noticed how dark the circles under them were. “Max, have you lost your mind?”

“Have _I_ lost my mind? Me?” Max was failing at not yelling. “You’re the one who’s dating him! Who told him you loved him! You’re the one who’s lost your mind!”

“Max, look at this!” Susan gestured to the floor. Beer had spread throughout the entire kitchen, the fumes sickening Max. There was broken glass everywhere. “This is not normal!”

“I don’t care!” More tears rolled down Max’s cheeks, wetting the top of her t-shirt. Her mother was right: she was a mess. And Lonnie was right, too: she was out of control. But this wasn’t her fault, it would never be her fault. She dug her fingernails into her wrist, pain shooting up her arm.

She didn’t want to be here anymore, _couldn’t_ be here anymore. She started forward, but slipped in her socks as she stepped in a pool of beer. She toppled over, the ground getting closer and closer until she was on it, shards of glass underneath her. She felt pricks in multiple places and a sharp pain in her elbow where glass had fully cut her.

Susan screamed, the sound shrill and headache-inducing. “Max, oh my god-”

“Leave me alone.” Max looked for glass free opening on the floor where she could place her hands and pull herself up. She was shaking, whether from the terror she’d felt at falling onto broken glass or from all the other reasons she had to be upset, she didn’t know.

Once she was standing, she clapped her hand over her opposite elbow and took slow, focused steps until she was away from the mess of beer and glass. Then she tugged off her wet socks and ran down the hall.

In the bathroom, she wet a washcloth and held it to her elbow. She thought she had scratches other places on her body, like her legs, but none of them were bleeding except for her elbow. She sat on the toilet, watching the door, waiting for her mother to come and knock on it.

There was nothing. No sound of her mother coming down the hall, no knock. She knew she’d told her mother to leave her alone, but it wasn’t supposed to happen like that. She did want to be alone, but mothers were supposed to ask if you were okay.

She remembered what Lonnie had said: her mother was scared of her. Her mother thought she complicated things. Didn’t it make sense, though? She had smashed bottles on the floor on purpose. She didn’t even think she regretted it. What difference did it make? Everything was falling apart. She screwed up, then she tried to be better, then she screwed up again. It was a never-ending cycle. All the while, her mind was imploding.

It was like there was nothing good in her life anymore. But that wasn’t true, not logically. She still had her friends, still had Lucas. She’d been excited to go stay with the Byers. Last year, even more had been wrong in her life, but she hadn’t felt like this. It was as if there was a veil between her and the real world. She didn’t truly experience the consequences of the things she did because it didn’t feel like they were real. And even when things were good, those things also felt unreal. The only real thing anymore was the darkness she saw when she closed her eyes. The only time she felt content was when she was asleep with no nightmares, away from her house. She wished she could go to sleep like that and never wake up.

Maybe her friends weren’t so crazy when they thought she’d been trying to kill herself. But no, she didn’t want to kill herself. She didn’t really want to die. She wasn’t about to stab herself or something. She wasn’t going to do anything like that. She just wished she didn’t have to go on living like she was.

The bleeding had stopped. Max dropped the washcloth into the sink and ran cold water over it. She should probably bandage her elbow but she didn’t have the energy. She left the bathroom and crossed the hall to her room. Her mother still did not come to see if she was okay.

She wasn’t done packing, but it was going to have to be good enough. There were plenty of clothes in her suitcase, along with her shampoo and comb and toothbrush and stuff. She’d been looking for something fun to bring, like a game they could all play, but it no longer interested her. She closed the suitcase and zipped it up, then propped it against her bedroom door. The path to her bed now clear, she went to it and fell against her pillow, wiping her face so she didn’t get her pillow wet.

As badly as she wanted to go to sleep forever, she knew she probably wouldn’t sleep tonight at all. Yet another curse of being her.

* * *

**July 25, 1986**

Even at seven in the morning, it was hot. Max had come outside in a hoodie but had taken it off a minute later, leaning down from her sitting position on the porch steps to stuff it in her suitcase. She knew she didn’t have to wait outside for Steve, that he’d have come to the door. She just didn’t want to spend another second in that house.

She’d woken up before her alarm and was running on maybe three hours of sleep. Fortunately, her mother had made coffee before work and Max had been up early enough to tell her not to dump what was left. Those were the only words they’d exchanged in the ten or so minutes they’d spent together. Max had waited for her mother to leave and had then chugged two full cups of coffee. She now felt very jittery, but at least awake.

Max had tried and failed to conjure back the excitement she’d felt about going to the Byers. It wasn’t like anything had technically changed. It was hard, though, to feel good about anything. Though this whole trip had been arranged to keep her away from her house, that had been an accessory before to the fun she was looking forward to having. Now it was the whole reason she even wanted to go.

Steve’s BMW pulled up in front of her house, stopping directly in front of Max. She got up and lifted her suitcase to an upright position, rolling it towards the back of the car. Steve met her there, opening the hatch and taking the suitcase from her.

“Ready for a memorable high school adventure?” He said, hoisting the suitcase into his car.

“What?”

“Oh, you know. In movies people always, like, find themselves on their summer vacations with their friends. Ready to find yourself?”

“I haven’t lost myself,” Max responded, “and we’re going to Illinois, not on a cruise. What movie are you even thinking of?”

“No need to be a downer,” Steve said. He shut the hatch and headed to the front seat. Max went around the other side of the car and got in on the passenger’s side.

Max realized her perk of being picked up first was getting the front seat for the entire drive. It was around three hours to the Byers’ house, according to Will. “So, you ever go on a summer vacation that made you find yourself?” She asked, deciding to engage him. She didn’t feel too chatty, but if she got him talking he might start on a story that would allow her to zone out.

“No, but I found myself because of Nancy. Love’s another way you can do it.” Steve twisted the key and pressed on the gas, the car moving forward.

“Wow, I’m sure Nancy would be touched,” Max said.

“Yeah, ha ha, not in love with her anymore.”

“Okay, then go find yourself another Nancy.”

Steve had made the u-turn on Max’s street and now turned left. He paused for a split second, concentrating on the turn, then said, “Who said I want another Nancy?”

Max’s fingers absent-minded traced over the cut on her elbow. “People usually have a type, don’t they? Like, imagine my mom dating someone nice. Oh, you can’t. Your kids are lucky your type is Nancy Wheeler.”

Steve raised his eyebrows though his eyes remained on the road. “I don’t have kids.”

“Your future kids, whatever. Better be careful, though. My mom went for my dad and then just like…Neil. Don’t downgrade.”

She didn’t know why she was talking about this. She hadn’t set out with any intention of discussing it. But her mother hung in her mind, the only thing she could think about. And Billy, weirdly. She’d dreamed about him again last night. He’d gotten mad at her and thrown a glass vase at the wall. It wasn’t something that had ever happened in real life, but it had felt scarily real. Then she’d woken up and struggled to remember if it had been she or Billy who had thrown the vase.

The car slowed to a stop at a stop sign. Steve glanced at her. “What’s on your arm?” He asked, gesturing to her elbow.

She shrugged. She had no energy to lie. Or rather, she didn’t care enough to. “I threw a bunch of beer bottles on the floor and they broke and then I tripped and fell on the glass.” Okay, she probably should lied.

“Holy shit, are you serious?” They had been at the stop sign longer than you were supposed to be at a stop sign. Steve studied her, likely questioning how she had said something so dramatic the way someone would say they got a B on their middle school science test. “Why did you do that?”

Why did she do that? She’d been angry. “I was mad. They were Lonnie’s. He brought, like, an entire six pack of beer for himself. And I thought he was about to fuck my mom.”

“What?” Steve was giving her that look that people always gave her. That look that said _are you sure you don’t have some serious mental issues?_ It wasn’t fair that people never gave that look to Billy when he was alive. People had looked at him with adoration or with fear, but they’d never challenged the way he acted. “Let me get this straight, you broke full on bottles of beer-”

“I know, my life is an after school special,” Max said sarcastically, uncomfortable. “You asked what happened to my arm. Can we keep driving?” They were still at the stop sign.

Steve sighed but started driving the car forward again. “What goes on in your head, Max?” He said, turning the car right.

She hadn’t heard that one before. It was always a _why_. A _why did you do that_. She never knew how to answer that. “What do you mean?”

“So you’re mad, and you think that, uh, Will’s dad is going to…fuck your mom, Jesus…so you just think that it’s probably a good idea to break bottles all over the floor? You know, someone pisses you off, you just really want to beat them up?”

He phrased it interestingly. She kind of got what he meant, what he was asking. By the way he phrased it, she could tell he didn’t think that that was went through her head. “No,” she said firmly. “No, it’s not like that. I was mad but I was just…upset. I don’t know, okay? It was like, it was like I didn’t even believe they would break. You probably have no idea what I mean.”

“I mean, not exactly,” Steve replied. At least he was honest. If he’d said he knew exactly what she meant she wouldn’t have believed him. “But jeez, kid. It must be hell living in that head of yours.”

Max didn’t know what to say to that. It was hell. It was hell every second of every minute of every day. “Billy acted like this,” she said. It was kind of changing the subject and kind of not. “I guess it was hell living in Billy’s head, too.”

Steve sighed again. She watched his hands; they seemed almost unsteady on the steering wheel. But yet the car moved forward the same as always, whatever unsteadiness he felt so controlled it basically didn’t exist at all. “Yeah, I bet it was,” he said.

Hell living in Billy’s head? Of course. Max could never understand what Billy was feeling when his moods changed at the drop of a hat. She could never understand what he was thinking when he acted like they were doing something together and then turned on her. She’d always thought of it as an _otherness_ she’d just never, ever understand. There was Billy and the way Billy felt and the things Billy thought and they were mysteries that had died with him.

But _hell_. Hell was how it had to be. Hell just like the hell she herself felt. All this time, she’d feared becoming like Billy because she saw herself acting more and more like him. She hadn’t realized she’d been like Billy far longer than she thought. It wasn’t about punching people and breaking things. It was the emptiness, the emptiness that allowed her to do that and not truly feel what she had done.

“You good, kid?” Steve said. Max knew she hadn’t responded. They were coming up the road to Dustin’s house.

“I’m good. Dustin’ll make better conversation than me, don’t worry.”

Steve stopped the car but didn’t move to get out of it. “Max, I know some seriously scary shit can go on in people’s minds. You can’t just act like it’s no big deal if-”

“I’m not going to kill myself, don’t worry,” Max said, forcing out a laugh. That was what everyone was worried about, wasn’t it? It was funny, because, again, nobody had ever seemed to be concerned that Billy would kill himself.

Steve ran his finger along his chin. “Okay, well, people who do that don’t usually tell people.”

Max rolled her eyes. “Just go get Dustin, good lord. You’re the one who made us all leave so early so you wouldn’t be late for work.” Steve worked the closing shift on Fridays, meaning he didn’t start until two in the afternoon.

Steve hesitated but then opened the car door. “You’re lucky I believe in punctuality,” he said. She rolled her eyes again.

Forty-five minutes later, they were driving on the interstate, Max’s friends chattering noisily in the backseat. She joined in enough to not be suspicious, but her heart wasn’t in it. She ignored Steve’s covert looks at her and geared herself up for the weekend ahead. At least her friends didn’t think she was a ticking time bomb.

* * *

It was a little before eleven when they pulled up in front of the Byers’ house. The Thomas Guide was spread out in Max’s lap; another perk (not so much) of the front seat was being Steve’s navigator. They had taken five or six wrong turns but had eventually gotten to their destination.

The Byers’ house was around the same size as their house in Hawkins, and situated in a similar location. It was on a long, tree-lined road. The trees provided shade that further explained why Will hadn’t understood how hot it was when they were radioing him from the top of the hill.

Will and Eleven rushed out of the house before they’d even gotten out of the car, running to hug them. As always, Max realized just how much she’d missed Eleven when she was seeing her again. It was strange to be hosted rather than to be the host. After all the hugs and the goodbyes to Steve, who told them he’d pick them up on Tuesday morning at ten, Will led them into the house.

It really wasn’t that apparent that they weren’t in Hawkins anymore. Max had spent the past year imagining the house from what Eleven told her about it, and it was both exactly how she’d imagined and far more Hawkins-y. Will gave them a quick tour, starting in the living room and ending in his and Jonathan’s room, which was at the back of the house. Jonathan’s side of the room was decorated with photographs, while Will’s was decorated with drawings. Max was glad that Will hadn’t stopped drawing just because they were in high school now.

According to Will, Jonathan was working (he mowed lawns so he didn’t have to commit to a job that would prevent him from coming back to Hawkins when he wanted to), so they made themselves comfortable in the room. Because it had been almost two weeks since Will and Eleven had visited, there was plenty to talk about. Eventually, when they got tired of talking, they went to the living room and put on the TV while they raided the kitchen for snacks.

Max thought she was having fun, but she didn’t quite feel happy. She watched her friends joking around, eating Doritos and making fun of each other, and struggled to laugh in time with them. Lucas sat next to her while they watched Will’s VHS of _Return of the Jedi_ , but she kept missing him looking at her at various points throughout the movie. Halfway through, he whispered to her to ask if she was okay, but she insisted she was and made a joke about Han Solo she didn’t even find funny.

The day passed fairly quickly, all things considered. Jonathan came home at five or six and offered to drive them to McDonalds for dinner. Max had a strawberry milkshake, her favorite, but barely tasted it. After dinner, they went for a walk through Will’s neighborhood, wearing jackets because it was almost chilly under the shade of the trees. Joyce got back from work at eight, and they indulged her questions about their lives and summers.

When Joyce went to bed, they gathered in Eleven’s bedroom, shutting the door.

“Let’s do something people do at, like, parties,” Lucas suggested, sitting down beside Max on the floor. “Something a little crazy.”

“What, like get drunk on Jell-o shots?” Max said.

“We’re not you,” Mike said. She gave him a dirty look. Every time anyone mentioned alcohol, they brought up the time she’d drunk wine. She wasn’t even the tiniest bit sensitive about it anymore.

“In movies, they always play truth or dare,” Will offered. “We don’t have to do all the crazy stuff they do, but still.”

“I’m down,” Lucas said. They all made noises of agreement. Eleven looked confused, but Mike whispered something to her that was probably an explanation of the game.

“I’ll go first,” Dustin announced. “Someone ask me.”

“Okay, truth or dare?” Mike said, scooting closer so that they were in a more circular formation on the floor.

“Truth.”

“Okay, um, did you ask Suzie out or did she ask you out?”

“I don’t know which would be better,” Lucas laughed.

“Okay, it’s my question, _Lucas_ , and I asked her. But she said she was going to ask me. So there.” Dustin adjusted his posture so he looked more poised, which made them all laugh.

Like with setting off the fireworks, Max didn’t put herself in the limelight. She dared Mike to kiss Lucas on the cheek and asked Eleven what she thought of her when they first met (“I didn’t like you,” Eleven admitted). She tried not to go too into the zone of her own head, but it was hard. The coffee had worn off and she was exhausted. Also, spending so many hours with her friends when she felt so cut off from them was frustrating. She wanted to be alone and she hated herself for wanting to be alone.

They managed to play truth or dare for half an hour before Dustin said, “Max, truth or dare?” They had been offering themselves up for questions rather than asking it other people, so she figured this was his attempt to include her. She didn’t want to be included.

“Dare,” she said.

“Of course you pick dare,” Dustin replied. To her annoyance, all of her friends continued their constant laughter, now directed at this.

“What do you mean, of course I pick dare?” Max bristled. She knew it wasn’t serious, but she was already on edge.

“I’m kidding, jeez,” Dustin said. “Just that you’d always choose a dare over answering a question about yourself.”

Max didn’t feel that this elaboration or the assurance that he was kidding made what he’d said any less offensive. “Okay, I’ll change to truth, then,” Max said challengingly, like Dustin was her competitor.

Dustin shrugged. “Okay. Uh…” he paused, thinking, then asked, “why is there a huge cut on your elbow?”

It was a weird question to ask in truth or dare. She was surprised none of her friends had asked about it in everyday conversation, but she’d thought they hadn’t noticed it. From the curious looks on all of their faces, they had definitely noticed it. But truth or dare was for scandalous questions, not questions like that. Her stomach twisted, uneasy.

“That’s a stupid question,” she answered, maybe a bit too harshly. “Ask something actually interesting.”

Dustin frowned confusedly. “If it’s stupid, just answer it.”

She sighed, grabbing her cut elbow with her hand so they wouldn’t stare at it. The action, of course, only made them stare. “I broke a bunch of bottles last night,” she said vaguely, but coldly.

“What kind of bottles?” Lucas asked, sounding genuinely bewildered. “Like, Coke?”

“Beer bottles.” She turned her head to face Will. “Your dad’s beer bottles. All six of them.”

Will’s face immediately became slightly paler. “Did he drink them?”

“No,” she said evenly, “he couldn’t. Because I smashed them all on the floor.”

“Wait, you broke them on purpose?” Mike questioned, voice shocked.

That was all she ever did: shock people. Even when they didn’t see her do things, they asked her about them and freaked out at what she told them. She was sick of it. “Yes, I broke them on purpose!” She exclaimed, maintaining a quiet enough voice so that she wouldn’t wake Joyce but heart thudding in her chest. “I just, like, threw them. Because I was mad. Crazy, right? Just like me?”

“Max, I didn’t mean it like that-” Dustin tried awkwardly, but she shook her head at him.

“Why didn’t you guys just ask me, Jesus? Why did it have to be a part of fucking truth or dare? Oh, because I always choose anything over answering a question about myself?” Those words of Dustin’s still reverberated in her head. One of the many pieces of evidence she had that her friends had tons of private thoughts about her they didn’t share. Did they talk about her, too? Probably.

“Let’s just do someone else,” Lucas said nervously. “It’s okay.”

“Okay,” Max agreed, “do someone else. Someone who will for sure be honest in their truth because _friends don’t lie_ and all that bullshit. What about _friends don’t judge?_ No rule for that one, is there?”

“Come on, we weren’t judging you,” Mike protested. Max caught the glance he exchanged with Lucas. So even Lucas thought about her like that, behind her back.

“Definitely sounds like judgment to me,” she snapped, standing up. She took a breath, noticing as she did how her friends’ eyes all snapped to her like she was some kind of attraction. “You guys can keep playing. I’m sick of being judged.”

She stormed out of the bedroom, not bothering to shut the door behind her. The living room was empty, Jonathan in his and Will’s bedroom. She stopped halfway between the main hall and the front of the house, the amount her whole body was shaking making it hard to walk steadily.

Then Lucas was in front of her, because he always was, was always there. And she was mad at him for looking at Mike. She was a horrible person, she really was. Wasn’t Billy? So what if it was hell living in his head. Hadn’t he scared her almost constantly? Hadn’t he almost killed Steve? If she was like that, which she was, she was a horrible person.

“Max, Dustin didn’t mean to make you upset, come back and play with us,” Lucas said. He looked upset himself. She had upset him.

“And now I’m overreacting,” she said. To her horror, tears were swimming into her eyes. It was going to be hard to withhold them. “He didn’t mean to upset me and now I’m overreacting. Like I always do.”

“I didn’t say that-”

“No, but you thought it,” she hissed. She felt one tear escape her eye and trickle down, onto the bridge of her nose. She sounded angry, but she wasn’t angry. So why did she sound angry? “Lucas, you guys have no idea what it’s like to be me, what it’s like to have you all thinking things about me when I don’t even _know_ why I do the things I do and-”

“You never tell us!” Lucas interrupted. “You don’t talk about it to us! We’re just scared, Max!” His voice was pleading.

“Scared of me?” She knew that wasn’t what he meant, so why did she say it? She didn’t know.

“No, scared _for_ you, Max, please-”

She rubbed her hands roughly against her eyes, as if pressure would suspend the rest of her tears. “You’re scared for me? What, do you want me to do something scary?”

“What?”

“I’m not trying to scare anyone!” The tears were falling now, she couldn’t stop them. Lucas moved forward like he might hug her, but she pushed past him, shoulder bumping into his like Lonnie’s had when he’d pushed past her mother. “Just fuck off, go play your game!”

“Max-”

“GO!” She didn’t exactly yell it, but it was loud, loud enough to wake Joyce if her sleeping was anything like Max’s. Max continued to push forward, closing the distance between where Lucas was standing and the front door. It was bolted shut, but she pulled the chain off of the door and forced it open.

She wasn’t wearing a jacket. It was properly cold now, especially for her pajamas. But she was crying, and she wasn’t about to cry like this in front of all her friends. She was crying so hard she could barely see, almost fell down the front steps of the Byers’ house.

Running away never worked. She’d learned that lesson herself. Wasn’t it she, Max, that always begged her mother to learn from her mistakes and not make the same ones over and over again?

Big surprise, she was a hypocrite.

Maybe her friends were yelling after her. Maybe they were scared for her, or whatever that bullshit was. She was tired of caring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I have finalized my plan for this story and am guesstimating it's going to be around 19 or 20 chapters. It is going to be getting darker and more intense from this point so please don't read on if that could trigger you! I have planned some pretty intense stuff for the second half of the story (secretly so glad I have more than a week left on this thing because I have no idea what my life is going to become when it's over).
> 
> Also if you are ever wondering why the stupid paragraphs are sometimes like off, it's because my sister told me when I was like 10 to put two spaces after periods and I literally can't stop doing it so it kind of ruins everything I just cannot help it


	12. Before

Walking down Will’s street in the dark wasn’t quite like wandering through the woods in the dark, but it was similar. There were no street lights, so the only light that illuminated Max’s way was the occasional faint glow from a house.

She expected her friends to come after her, and she wasn’t disappointed. She heard them yelling her name, telling her to come back inside, but she pressed onwards. She wasn’t trying to run all the way back to Hawkins or something crazy. She just wanted to get away from them for a while. She wasn’t wearing shoes, and it was uncomfortable walking quickly along the asphalt of the road in her socks. At least the road was paved; she didn’t think she could do it if it were a dirt road.

She was ashamed at how much she was crying. It was ridiculous, because she knew how much she was overreacting and now she was running away because she wished she weren’t overreacting, which was another overreaction. Now, as she walked briskly down the dark road, she struggled to even process that she was really doing this. She knew what she was doing, would be able to explain it in a full English sentence should someone ask her, but when she looked down at her feet the sensation of moving them was freaky. She held her hands up to look at them, the image blurry through her tears, and she couldn’t believe that she was exactly inside them. That this was her.

The sound of her friends’ voices had faded as she got to the end of Will’s street, but now she heard them again. They were coming after her. They probably had shoes, too. All she wanted was twenty or thirty minutes alone. Maybe if she’d told them that, they would have given it to her, but she hadn’t told them that. According to Lucas, she didn’t tell them anything.

She turned right, keeping close to the edge of the road. This cross street was longer than Will’s, and darker. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and her tears were flowing less rapidly, allowing her to see well enough to move more quickly.

She walked along the line where the road met dirt and the trees began, figuring it would shelter her better. She doubted that her friends had seen which way she’d turned, because they’d still sounded reasonably far away when she did. When they’d gone to McDonalds and had first arrived at Will’s, they’d driven the other way, so her friends would likely assume she’d gone that way.

The cold night air did help her clear her mind, though it also made her shiver. She tried to remember the exact words her friends had said to her when they were playing truth or dare, to determine how much she had overreacted. A little anger still rose up in her chest as she did, so she couldn’t have been totally in the wrong. She got why they would judge her, but they _had_ been judging her. It was like she was constantly on display, even when she didn’t know it. She saw the way they looked at each other, heard the way they talked to her when she got angry. They thought something was wrong with her. Lucas had said it himself: they were scared for her.

They were right. She wasn’t bothering to deny it anymore. Something was wrong with her. She didn’t know if it had a name or if it was just her own mind giving out. She didn’t see the point in her friends talking about her behind her back, though. They couldn’t fix it. They couldn’t fix her. She couldn’t even fix herself. She had tried, so many times, to stop being this way. It was impossible. She was probably going to be like this until she died. The sooner her friends accepted that, the sooner they would understand who she was now. But, of course, then they might not want to be her friend anymore. She knew how they felt about her. They were worried about her, holding out hope that they could do something to help her. _Help_ was just code for _change_. If she never changed, eventually they wouldn’t want to be her friend anymore.

Her feet hurt. She dreaded walking back. Every step she took carried her further away, created more of a distance that she’d have to walk back. She didn’t hear anyone behind her, so she was probably in the clear for now. Assuming they didn’t call the police or something crazy. All the more reason not to walk eight miles away.

She stopped and glanced around her. She’d hoped there would be a fallen tree or something that she could sit on, but there were only tall trees that were very much alive. She sighed and sat down right where she stood, on the edge of the road. So far a single car hadn’t driven by, so she probably wouldn’t die from sitting here.

The peace of this spot was almost worth her leaving. Almost, because she did regret it. She should have just told her friends to leave her alone and stayed in the living room. Hindsight was 20/20, of course, unlike her vision: everything looked distorted right now. She brushed her hands off on her legs, hoping they were somewhat clean, and rubbed them over her eyes until she thought all of the tears were gone. She wasn’t crying anymore. Her chest ached, heavy with an awful sensation she never knew how to describe. It was like despair, but less poetic than that word implied. Everything was wrong and she was stressed about everything being wrong, but when she tried to say in words what was wrong the words didn’t seem to cover it all. This feeling wasn’t just about her mother and Lonnie and her friends’ judgment of her. It was bigger. It was so big that the more she let it consume her, the harder it seemed to be to cry. Her crying was irrational, a response to the erratic emotions that swelled inside her randomly. This ache was not irrational, but overwhelming, like it was the most rational thing in the world.

Max sat still for a while, there on the edge of the road. It was weird how she could be both soothed by the peace of it and further plunged into darkness because of the peace. She felt terrible, not good, but yet she would be okay with staying here forever. She couldn’t, anyway. She needed to go back before her friends actually called the police.

She got up, absently wiping dirt off of her pajama shorts, and started back down the road. She wondered how long she’d even been out here. Definitely more than twenty minutes. Had her friends stopped looking for her? She hoped not, because if they had then they would certainly be telling Will’s mother right about now.

She saw a shape ahead of her, someone walking towards her. It was too far away for her to distinguish who it was, but it was just one of her friends. Not Eleven, the person was too tall. One of the boys. Mike, she thought. Mike was the tallest and the skinniest of her friends.

“Max!” He yelled to her, obviously seeing her, too. She contemplated turning back around, but it wasn’t like Mike couldn’t catch up to her if he wanted to. She held up her hand in a strange wave, then put it down again. That looked stupid.

She continued walking at a normal pace towards Mike, but he broke into a slight run, reaching her soon after she recognized who it was.

“We were literally going to call the police,” he informed her, the first thing he said. At least they hadn’t yet. “We all split up to look for you, but we were about to go back. Where were you even going?”

“I just wanted to take a walk, god,” she said. She didn’t even want to be sarcastic, but it was easier than any kind of honesty. She was embarrassed.

“Why didn’t you just say that?” Mike questioned. He stared at her like she looked drastically different than she had an hour ago, which she was pretty sure she didn’t. Her face was probably bright red from all the crying, but it had to be too dark for that to even be noticeable.

“I don’t know,” she responded. “I figured you guys wouldn’t think I was trying to go to the moon or something.”

“Come on, it’s, like, midnight. It was just a truth or dare question, why-”

“It’s not about the truth or dare question,” she said. She started walking forward again, so they’d at least be heading back while they engaged in whatever riveting conversation Mike was going to attempt to have with her. “I just wish you guys didn’t have all these, like, opinions about me. You all do.”

“We all have opinions about everyone,” Mike protested.

“You know what I mean.”

“Okay, fine, we have opinions about you, or whatever,” Mike admitted. “You just act different than you used to. Like, you might get mad at what Dustin said, but you wouldn’t always have gotten so upset. It’s just weird.”

She was surprised he was so forthcoming about this. She’d expected all of her friends to assure her they weren’t judging her and everything was fine. “I know I’m not the same,” she said dully, wrapping her arms around herself for warmth. “I’m so tired, I barely slept last night. So I went overboard, I know. I’m good at going overboard apparently.”

Mike twisted his head so that he was looking at her as they walked. “You don’t always go _overboard_. But you’re always kind of…off. It’s like, the whole year that I didn’t get to see El, I felt like it was crazy everyone was having fun when there was this big thing that just sucked.”

Max remembered how awful Mike had been to her back then. When El had come back, he had seemed happier, and had then started being nicer to her. “What, you think I feel like that?”

Mike shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably not. But I hated not feeling like I was as much a part of everything as everyone else. And I knew it was my fault, too. Kind of.”

“Oh.” That did sort of sound like how she felt, at a surface level. “But when El came back, it got better.” She knew whatever was wrong with her wouldn’t be solved by something so simple.

“Yeah,” Mike said. Silence fell between them for a while. She waited, sensing that he had something else to say. He did. “I guess it’s harder for this to get better for you. But it can, Max, if you’d just talk to us.”

Yeah, she didn’t think that was going to be the magic fix. “Did you talk to your friends when you missed El?” She asked, already knowing the answer. Lucas had told her before what Mike was like for that whole year.

“Well, not a lot, but-”

“I thought _friends don’t lie_ was your favorite thing to say,” Max interrupted, enjoying her new place of power in the conversation, even if it was only momentary.

“They just didn’t think she was coming back,” Mike said. “I knew they were going to get annoyed if I kept talking about it when she wasn’t coming back. This is different.”

But Max got what Mike meant, and it wasn’t different. It was more the same than Mike realized. “It’s not,” Max said softly. “Because who knows if _I’m_ coming back? I don’t want you guys worrying about me, and then I just never change. We both know you guys are getting sick of it. I just want things to stay the same.”

“We won’t get sick of it, that’s crazy,” Mike insisted, a ferocity in his voice that she rarely heard directed at her. “Things aren’t the same when you’re like this.” At least she was enough a part of the Party to make a difference. Not that that was the kind of difference she wanted to make.

“You’d better get used to it,” Max said dryly, “if you really want me to be honest.”

“What? You’re not going to be like this forever, come on.”

She rolled her eyes. “‘Be like this?’ Do you even know what ‘this’ is? I barely remember what it’s like to _not_ be like this.”

“It’ll get better, I swear,” Mike argued.

Max wasn’t a little kid anymore and she could no longer be comforted by people who had no idea what they were talking about. “Maybe when I die,” she replied sarcastically.

“Shit, that’s dark.” His head was twisted at even more of an angle so he could see her face. She kept her focus forward, pretending she didn’t see him.

She was spared from having to think of something else to say. They were back at Will’s street now, and the rest of the Party was gathered there. At the sight of Max with Mike, they ran forward. They were indeed wearing shoes, unlike Max.

“Holy shit, where did you go?” Lucas exclaimed, also looking at her like she looked different than she had an hour ago. To be fair, he was shining a flashlight at her, so he could probably see how red her face was.

“Where does it look like I went?” she said, gesturing down the road. “Let’s just go back before Will’s mom freaks out.”

She thought this would save her from any kind of discussion, but Will stepped towards her and said, “We already told her. She heard you before you left, so we had to.”

Oh, god. So now Joyce was going to start worrying about her, too. And unlike everyone else, Joyce was a full-fledged adult with some kind of power. She could call someone or send Max to a mental hospital. Okay, maybe not the second one. But still.

Her friends were all watching for her reaction to this, so she put on her most obviously fake and sarcastic smile and said, “Lovely.”

She moved past Lucas and began to walk back down the road to Will’s house, expecting that they would follow her, which they did. Lucas hurried to walk next to her, slightly ahead of their other friends. “You shouldn’t have run away, Max,” he said.

“I do a lot of things I shouldn’t,” she responded, indirectly agreeing with him. “I know you’re all losing your shit and whatever about this, but I don’t really want to have a deep and emotional talk right now.”

“Okay. You didn’t have to. You really could have just come back and played with us.”

Yet another reminder that she had fucked up. “Yeah, I know.”

“We don’t have to talk about it anymore,” Lucas said, his tone too understanding. It filled her stomach with butterflies. “I’m sure Will’s mom will just let you go to bed.”

Max wasn’t as sure, but she didn’t argue. Because she didn’t say anything, Lucas didn’t either. None of her friends talked the whole rest of the way back to the Byers’. When they were back inside the house, Max immediately peeled off her dirty socks. When she looked up from her feet, Joyce was both standing in front of her. She was wearing pajamas and her hair was slightly messy.

“Max, can I talk to alone for a minute?” Joyce asked, eyes kind. At least she wasn’t angry.

Max didn’t see the point of rejecting the request, so she nodded. Joyce beckoned Max over to the couch. Her friends, taking the hint, all filed down the hall, probably back into Eleven’s room.

“Okay, so,” Joyce began, “can you explain to me why you went outside in the middle of the night? From what I gathered before your friends all raced out of the house to chase you down, you were mad at them because they asked you a question, or…”

“Yeah, they were just being really…judgmental,” Max said weakly. “I’m sorry I woke you up.”

“No, sleep is overrated,” Joyce joked. Max smiled, relaxing. “What I really wanted to talk to you about was something else. Well, also why you went outside in the middle of the night, but mainly something else.”

Something else. Lonnie? How insane Max was? Probably Lonnie.

“Jonathan told me your mother is dating my ex-husband,” Joyce continued. She said it like the idea was repulsive to her and she was attempting to conceal just how much. “I’m sure that’s not, well, the nicest thing in the world.”

Max laughed at this phrasing. It wasn’t quite funny, but laughing released some of the stress held deep within her. “He’s an ass,” she said brazenly. “But my mom isn’t the best at picking out who the good guys are.”

Joyce frowned, but her eyes remained friendly. “Did that have anything to do with tonight?”

Max paused, then answered, “To do with it, kind of.” She hadn’t _really_ gotten upset just because of Lonnie or the story about her breaking his beer bottles. Nevertheless, it had been a contributing factor.

“Well, I have a proposal for you. Would you mind if I gave your mother a call?”

Having Jonathan talk to her mother was a step up from having Will talk to her mother, though Max had turned both offers down. Having Joyce talk to her mother was most likely to be effective. Max had given up on the idea of someone convincing her mother to break up with Lonnie, seeing as their relationship seemed to be entirely founded on Susan’s fear of Neil. But now that Joyce was offering, she felt a tiny bit of hope. It couldn’t hurt.

“If it’s not too much trouble,” Max said. To be honest, it might be hard to call the woman who was dating your ex-husband to tell her that he was a psychopath. So, ideally, it was not too much trouble.

“I wouldn’t have offered if it was,” Joyce assured her. “I’ll call her tomorrow morning, okay? Do you know when she’ll be home?”

All day, as far as Max knew. Her mother had taken off work to ensure she’d be home whenever Neil came to get his stuff. She told Joyce this, leaving out the part about Neil.

“All right, then.” Joyce smiled and got up from the couch. “You look like you could probably use some sleep, so maybe we should all go to bed. Sound good?”

It might not sound as good to Max’s friends, who had made plans earlier to stay up until three, but it sounded good to Max. “Thank you,” she told Joyce, thinking that these words weren’t quite enough to emphasize her level of gratitude.

“Hey, it’s what mothers do.”

Not all of them. Not like Max hadn’t gotten over that ages ago. Some people had good mothers and some people didn’t. Some people had good lives and some people didn’t. It was the way of the world.

Max headed down the hall to Eleven’s room. She pushed open the door, ready to disappoint all of her friends by telling them she wanted to go to bed, but only Eleven was inside.

“We were tired,” El explained when max looked at her questioningly. “Time for bed.”

No way they were all tired. Her friends had done this for her.

* * *

**July 26, 1986**

“Max, your mother’s on the phone.”

Max laid in Eleven’s bed, half awake, eyes on the wall clock. It was barely nine in the morning. Joyce stood over her, whispering.

Max forced herself out of bed without even having to think about it, grabbing her sweatshirt off the floor before following Joyce down the hall to the kitchen. The phone rested off the hook on the table, cord stretched out from the wall. Joyce nodded encouragingly at it, so Max went over to it and picked it up.

“Mom?”

“Max!” Susan’s voice was anxious. “How are you, honey?”

Susan wasn’t the kind of mother who called Max at her friends’ houses to ask how she was. “I’m fine, Mom. I just woke up.”

“Joyce was just talking to me, Max, about Lonnie.”

Oh. Max didn’t know how she was supposed to react. She didn’t know her mother would want to talk to her after Joyce said whatever she said. What did she even say?

At this point, every conversation about Lonnie went so predictably that it wasn’t weird for Max to be straight up about it. “Are you going to break up with him?”

“Oh, Max, I don’t know.” The anxiety in Susan’s voice was more extreme than Max had realized. She sounded like she was borderline panicking. Max could hear her breathing through the phone. “Neil’s coming today, I think.” It was like Susan didn’t even recognize that this was a change of subject. It was all one subject for her.

Max pulled out one of the chairs at the kitchen table and sat down, holding the phone closer to her ear. She searched for Joyce in the room and was relieved to see that she had left, giving Max privacy. “Do you believe what Will’s mom told you? Because if you do, won’t you break up with him?”

“I don’t know, Neil’s coming and…” Susan hesitated. “I wish you weren’t so far away, Max.”

 _Really?_ Lonnie had told Max that Susan was glad she was leaving. That it made everything easier. Max was oddly touched, then guilty. Yes, she did nothing but fight with her, but her mother was still her mother. She’d left her own mother in Hawkins to deal with Neil all by herself. Well, not all by herself; Lonnie was there for her. But if Joyce had succeeded in crumbling Susan’s illusion of Lonnie, then he was gone, too. That must be why Susan was panicking.

“Mom, Neil can’t do anything, he’s on parole,” Max said, hoping that was somewhat consoling. In reality, parole wasn’t a cage that would stop Neil from doing whatever he wanted. Max doubted that he’d do something to screw it up, though. “He’s just going to get his stuff and then leave. You’ll be okay.”

“I talked to him, on the phone,” Susan said. This was news to Max. “He was nice.”

Max’s mind was working at lightning speed, trying to comprehend what was going through her mother’s mind. This must be what it was like to try to understand her. “Nice is good, isn’t it?” She was growing impatient, but did her best not to reveal this.

“I don’t know,” Susan answered again. “I know you hate Lonnie, honey, but I think he had a point when he said…when he said that if I was single, I’d lose track of things. Do you know your grandma, my mom?”

What the hell was even going on? “What?” Max questioned. Her own heart rate was increasing with anxiety, but she didn’t know what she was anxious about right now. “What do you mean, lose track of things?”

“My dad treated my mom so badly,” Susan said. This was so random. “But she stayed with him. I know you think I’m the same way, Max. Lonnie agreed with you, that’s what I’m saying.”

Lonnie agreed with Max. That was a new one. But shit. Understanding was dawning on her slowly, alarm running through her body like electricity as she began to get it. Lose track of things. Like, lose track of Neil. Just like her mother had done for all the years they were married. Max was right, and Lonnie was right, and Max knew why her mother was panicking. She was surprised that she was, surprised that this was something that bothered her mother, but her surprise couldn’t get in the way of the implications.

“You don’t have to stay with Lonnie so you don’t get back together with Neil, Mom,” Max said hurriedly. She didn’t know how to talk people down. She’d never had this job before. “Neil’s going to be gone in, like, twenty-four hours. You’ll never have to see him again. Don’t be dumb.”

“I know,” Susan responded. Max talked the same way when she was ashamed of how whoever was talking to her was talking to her. Her mother was far less controlled than she was, though. This fear had to be deep rooted for it to be such a vulnerable point. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m thinking about what Joyce said to me, okay? I’m sorry for being so stubborn, honey. I’m sorry for not listening to you.”

Max wasn’t done with the important part of this conversation even if her mother was. “You can’t think about Neil like that,” she pushed. She was squeezing the phone so hard her knuckles were turning white. “He’s going to come and get his stuff and leave. I’m sorry I’m not there, Mom, but you have to promise me you won’t be nice to him even if he’s nice to you.”

“No, Max, I’m glad you’re with your friends. Don’t worry about that. I know what you think of me, but I’m not like that-”

“But you are!” Max’s voice broke. She was frustrated. “You are like that, Mom, please listen to me.”

“You sound tired, Max, you should go back to bed. I’ll be all right, I promise.”

Susan’s promises were like the exact opposite of Mike’s. If she said she promised something, it was more likely that she’d break the promise than keep it. Max kicked her foot into the table, frustration growing. “Lonnie is full of shit, but about this, you have to-”

“Max, I have to go.”

The phone buzzed in Max’s ear, the connection cut off. She contemplated dialing her mother back, but it was unlikely it would help anything. She knew what she had to do.

She left the phone hanging off the hook on the table, running through the house to the master bedroom. Joyce was sitting on the bed, reading a book.

“Mrs. Byers, I have-”

“Oh, you can call me Joyce-”

“Okay, Joyce, I have to go home.”

Joyce set her book down next to her. It shut, meaning she’d have to dig for her place when she reopened it. Joyce ignored this, wide eyes focused on Max. “Home? Is everything all right?”

No, was the honest answer. But only someone who knew Max’s mother as well as Max did would understand the situation. And Max was the only such person. Maybe her dad, once upon a time, but not anymore. Susan was all alone in this world except for Max.

God, she was a shitty daughter.

“It was just wrong of me to leave,” Max explained, counting milliseconds in her head in between each word so she didn’t sound like she was freaking out. “This is a hard time for her, you know. I should be there for her.”

Joyce frowned, getting off her bed. “I thought you weren’t allowed to be there right now.”

A minor problem. Max wasn’t interested in hanging out with Neil, anyway. She just had to be there when he left, to remind her mother how horrible he was. Or, conversely, to remind her mother how horrible Lonnie was. How neither of them were an option.

“I have to go,” she pressed. “I can call Steve to pick me up.”

Joyce walked closer to Max. Her expression was sympathetic. Max did not care for sympathy right now. “Max, your mother is an adult. I know this stuff is complicated, but your mother can handle it by herself. She’s not going to stay with Lonnie, she told me that herself.”

“Because it was what you wanted to hear,” Max said. She wished Joyce would get that she didn’t want to discuss this, that it wasn’t an idea she was bouncing off of her. She was going home and that was final. “My mother is scared of confrontation. Only god knows what she actually will do. It doesn’t matter. I have to go home.”

Joyce sighed resignedly. A good sign. “I’m sure Jonathan would be willing to drive you,” she said slowly. “But you cannot be around your stepfather. Will you agree to that?”

“Yes.” Max nodded her head wildly. It felt like every second she was away, her mother was coming closer and closer to making a terrible decision. “Are you sure Jonathan will drive me?”

“Let’s ask him.”

Joyce exited her bedroom and went to Jonathan’s and Will’s bedroom door, Max so close behind her she almost ran into her. She knocked and then opened it. The boys were all spread out throughout the room in sleeping bags, Will asleep in his bed. Max couldn’t believe Jonathan was willing to share a bedroom with all of them. She didn’t know her friends didn’t just sleep in the living room, anyway, but when she’d asked them yesterday they’d acted like there was some big secretive reason why.

Only Jonathan was awake, sitting on his bed looking at his camera. Joyce gestured for him to come join them in the hall to talk. He stepped around Mike and Lucas and shut the door behind him.

Max stood awkwardly off to the side while Jonathan and Joyce spoke in hushed voices, glancing at her a couple times. Finally, they both turned to Max.

“Of course I’ll drive you back to Hawkins,” Jonathan said. “We can go in, like, half an hour, if that’s soon enough.”

It would have to be. “Thank you so much,” Max told him. She meant it, but it sounded sort of fake. She was too stressed.

“What are you guys talking about?”

Lucas had come out into the hall, rubbing his eyes sleepily. He looked back and forth between Max and Jonathan, plainly confused.

Max bit her lip, not able to meet his eyes. “I’m going home.”

She felt guilty, yes. But not guilty enough to change her mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this was kind of short/not as much happened, I was going to include the entire next scene in this chapter but I struggled to write all day. I really need another break! I know it's not the best place to stop but I will be back on Thursday, trust me it's for the best for the quality of the story.
> 
> The cliffhanger was going to be a lot better but as I said, I ended it a little early. So you can just imagine what could possibly be coming...


	13. Neil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It feels like I took a month off of this story instead of one day, has it seriously only been one day wtf. I'm back now, no more breaks until the end of the story.
> 
> Also I started Mad Max, In Control one month ago today happy anniversary haha

Lucas had spent every last minute that Max was in the Byers’ house trying to convince her not to leave. Unable to properly convey why it was so imperative that she go home, she’d told him that she had to be there for her mother. He told her this was a bullshit reason, basically what Joyce had said only more bluntly. But nothing would talk her out of it. She wanted to be talked out of it, didn’t want to leave her friends, but that was the precise reason why she had to build a wall in her mind and listen to no one about what to do.

Max hated leaving Eleven the most, because while she would see Lucas in a few days, Eleven and Will weren’t coming back to Hawkins for a couple weeks. She’d barely had any time to hang out with El, and wouldn’t have blamed her if she was annoyed at Max. However, Eleven told Max she understood that there were things you had to do for your mother. This struck Max as an odd thing to say, seeing as El didn’t exactly have a mother of her own, but she didn’t question it.

Max was now sitting in the passenger seat of Jonathan’s car, speeding down I-69. Max had thanked him a few more times once they started driving, and then they’d sunk into silence. Jonathan probably wanted to ask her why he was driving her back to Hawkins a day after she’d left it, but her responses to Lucas’s incessant questions over breakfast must have served as indication that any efforts to get a real answer would be fruitless.

Jonathan finally spoke to her when they got off the highway and were around fifteen minutes away from Max’s house. “You don’t have to listen to me,” he began. Always a good start. But I know what it’s like to try to be there for someone who doesn’t care.”

He couldn’t be talking about Joyce, because nobody would describe Joyce in that way. He had to be talking about Lonnie, which didn’t really fit with what Max was doing. She definitely wasn’t trying to be there for Lonnie, and her mother was not like Lonnie. “I’m not doing that,” Max replied, trying not to be too abrupt about it. “I don’t even care that much about my mother, seriously. This is different.” Maybe it was a bit harsh to say she didn’t care about her mother. She was pretty sure that it wasn’t true.

“Yeah, I just mean…well, when I was young, I always said I didn’t care about my dad, but I did. And then I figured out there was no reason to care about him when he would never care about me. I don’t mean your mom doesn’t care about you, but if she doesn’t act like it then you shouldn’t kill yourself for her, you know.”

Max didn’t feel she deserved this piece of personal information from Jonathan. He was saying it because he was trying to help her, but her situation was not the same. “I’m doing this for myself,” Max said. “It’s not for her. The stuff she does affects me, so I have to care about that stuff, right? Don’t worry, I’m sure I’m more selfish than you’ll ever be.” It was silly, really, for Jonathan to be telling her not to care about her mother. He was such a caring person in general, and she was constantly proving that she was the opposite.

“Why are you going back right now, then?” Jonathan asked. He probably didn’t know what to say to her calling herself selfish.

“There needs to be someone responsible with my mother right now,” Max said flatly. “So she doesn’t screw up my life, too.”

Jonathan glanced at her briefly before refocusing on the road. “Okay.”

That was all. Max was glad he didn’t argue with her. Maybe he got that she didn’t want to be argued with, that this was far too complicated for her to defend. Maybe he was just too much the opposite of selfish to try to assert himself into her life. If it had been her, she probably would have pushed. Billy wouldn’t have pushed because he probably would have never asked at all. Maybe Max wasn’t exactly like him.

Jonathan parked in front of Max’s house, in the spot where Max’s mother usually kept her car when she was home. Which meant she wasn’t home. Max found this extremely odd; Neil was coming today, wasn’t he? Her mother had to be home.

Max didn’t let on that there was anything to be concerned about, and Jonathan didn’t ask. He helped her get her suitcase out of the back of the car and offered to carry it inside for her, but she told him she could handle it. A suitcase was nothing compared to whatever was going on with her mother.

The inside of the house was filled with boxes, spread out everywhere across the living room. Boxes of Neil’s stuff. Most of them had been stored in the garage for the past eight months, stacked around Neil’s car, the car that Max had smashed with a baseball bat the day of Neil’s arraignment. Susan had driven it into the garage a few days after and they’d kept it there ever since. Neither of them ever went into the garage, because Susan parked her car in front of the house. It was full, anyway; Billy’s Camaro was parked on the other side. Max didn’t know how Neil was going to take both cars back with him, but that wasn’t her problem. As long as Neil didn’t take her mother back with him, metaphorically speaking, Max did not care what he did.

Max called out for her mother on the off chance that she was here, but there was no response. This made Max slightly anxious, but she reminded herself that there was no way her mother would be gone if Neil was coming soon. She had to come back before Neil did, and then Max could talk to her and leave before Neil arrived. It wasn’t like her mother even knew that Max was coming home.

Max paced back and forth across the kitchen, watching the second hand tick in circles around the wall clock. It was a little before one o’clock in the afternoon. Because her mother would normally be working at this time, Max had no guesses as to where she could have gone. The only thing her mother ever did other than work was go grocery shopping and spend time with Lonnie. Would she really be spending time with Lonnie right now, after she was thinking about breaking up with him?

Shit, was she breaking up with him right now? As much as Max wanted her mother to dump him, this wasn’t the time to do it in person. Max felt like she was waiting at an army base for her fellow soldiers when an attack was going to happen soon.

Max nearly jumped out of her skin when the telephone started ringing. After she processed that it was just the phone, she ran to it, wondering if it was her mother.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Max.” Oh, it was Lucas. Max never thought she’d be disappointed that a telephone call was Lucas instead of her mother. “I just wondered if you were home by now.”

“Yeah, well, obviously,” Max responded.

“Isn’t your stepdad coming soon?”

“He’s supposed to.”

“But you’re not supposed to be there,” Lucas said. People kept telling her this, like she didn’t know it. She was the one who had told it to everyone in the first place. “Shouldn’t you leave? You could go to the arcade or something.”

“I’m just waiting for my mom,” Max said. “She’ll come back before he gets here. She has to.” In actuality, Max was growing more and more worried that something was wrong, that her mother was not coming home. It wasn’t like there was anything Lucas could do for her from Illinois, so there was no point in confiding this to him.

“Are you sure?” Lucas pushed.

Again, Max was definitely not sure. “Yeah.”

“I wish you didn’t leave, Max, it’s bull that you have to go there just because-”

Max’s attention was drawn away from Lucas’s words at the sound of the doorbell. Who even rang the doorbell? The sound was loud, carrying easily to where Max stood at the telephone. A profound sensation of dread came over her. “Lucas, I have to go.”

“What? Why?” He probably had caught the panic in her voice. She hadn’t really tried to conceal it.

“Bye.” Max hung up the phone before Lucas could even say _bye_ back. Not like he would have, anyway, without questioning her.

The doorbell rang again. Somehow it seemed louder this time. Max maneuvered herself around all of the boxes in the living room, not even pausing when she bumped her knee on the coffee table. She didn’t bother to look through the peephole. She knew who it was. She grabbed the doorknob and pulled the front door open into the house.

Neil looked thinner than Max remembered. He still had a mustache, but it was thinner, too, like he’d recently begun growing it back. He stared at her, and she stared at him, and she wished she’d stayed in Illinois.

“You’re not allowed to be here, Maxine,” Neil said. The deepness of his voice was still so familiar to her, though she hadn’t heard it in months. Everything about him was familiar to her, in the worst way. “Did your mother not explain that to you?”

Max hated how he said it, like her mother was dumb. “She did. I just…didn’t know you were coming right now. You should leave.”

Neil raised his eyebrows. “I should leave? This is my scheduled time to get my stuff. I am not leaving.”

He walked into the house without her telling him he could. The sleeve of his t-shirt touched her so lightly that it was probably truly accidental, but Max shivered involuntarily. She shouldn’t have opened the door at all. Her mother was clearly gone because she didn’t want to be here, so there was no way she was coming home. Max was on her own and this entire situation was literally illegal.

“I see your mother was very ready for me to take my stuff and go,” Neil said coldly, facing the boxes on the floor. This comment alone was enough for Max to realize a part of her was relieved her mother wasn’t here; if she wasn’t here, there was no chance of Neil manipulating her. Maybe that was why her mother had left.

“She was,” Max said. If somewhere in Neil’s twisted brain there was hope for him and her mother, she wanted to kill it.

“It’s… _interesting_ that everything is ending like this.” Neil kneeled down, looking over the boxes. They were sloppily taped shut with masking tape, vague labels like _Neil’s Books_ written over the tape in Sharpie. “You and your mother are only living here because of me, and now you’re kicking me out of the house that I paid the down payment on. You’d think, after sending someone to prison on ridiculously overblown charges, that you’d be more grateful for what they’d done for you. Of course, your attitude doesn’t surprise me. But I must admit that your mother’s does.”

Her mother’s attitude surprised him? Maybe Max was wrong in thinking her mother hadn’t changed. But that wasn’t the main point of what Neil had said, and Max hated him for saying it. _Ridiculously overblown charges_. Sometimes, Max herself relived different times Neil had hit her, trying to evaluate how bad it really was. The reality was that most of the time, though Neil hurt her, he could have hurt her worse. She was glad that he had gone to prison, believed wholeheartedly that he deserved it, but she didn’t want to hear him say the charges were overblown.

As for them living in Hawkins because of him, that was technically true, but indirectly it was because of Billy. Max decided to focus on this, saying, “We only live here because you were too shitty of a father to handle Billy so you tried to run away from the problem.” She was proud of herself for saying it. She never would have said that back when Neil was married to her mother. Now, she didn’t know why she felt safe to. Was it because she didn’t think Neil would touch her while he was on parole? Maybe. Or maybe it was her own hidden attempt to validate her memories of what had happened. If he hit her now, the charges were definitely not overblown.

He didn’t. He looked pissed. The vein in his forehead that bulged when he was angry was doing just that. She watched his hands, how they had stiffened. But he didn’t touch her.

“So you’re telling me you wished I didn’t move you here?” He said challengingly. He was still looking over the boxes, pulling them closer to the door. “You wish we were still in California, where you had no friends?”

It wasn’t quite true that Max had had no friends in California, but it kind of was. Around when they’d moved, Max’s friends had pulled away from her, thanks to Billy. Max did not wish she was back in California. She didn’t answer Neil.

“Where is Susan?” Neil asked, changing the subject. He still sounded on edge, but he was permanently on edge; a little of the anger in his voice from Max’s comment about Billy had disappeared. He probably thought he’d won.

Max was disgusted with herself for saying it, but seeing the opportunity, she had to: “She’s probably on a date with her boyfriend.”

Neil temporarily looked away from the boxes. She was doing reasonably well at being bold, but she couldn’t return his gaze. She wasn’t quite that brave. “Do you think that’s going to shock me or something?” He said, a response that shocked her. “She was bound to downgrade. She can’t be alone for ten seconds.”

Max pretended to be interested in the boxes herself, terrified of the way he was looking at her.

“Tell me, Maxine,” Neil continued. “What’s this boyfriend like?”

Max reached for a box. Neil grabbed her by the wrist and removed her hand from it. He let go of her as quickly as he’d grabbed her, but Max’s whole arm shook like he’d slammed it into a wall. “You shouldn’t touch things that aren’t yours,” Neil said icily. “So he’s that bad, is he?”

Max flushed. She wanted to punch Neil, but the idea was more ridiculous than punching Mr. Clarke, albeit for different reasons. “It’s your fault. You did this to her.” Honestly, her mother was destined to date people like Neil and Lonnie even if she never dated either of them. It was just easier to blame Neil.

Neil stood up without notice, looming over Max, who was crouched in front of the box she’d tried to touch. “You’re not that naive, Maxine. You clearly haven’t moved on, either. So what what the point of all of this? Did you think it would make things better?”

“What do you mean, ‘this?’” Max stood up, too. She was still a head shorter than Neil, but maybe if she kept telling herself that he was the one on parole and she was the one with her whole life ahead of her, she wouldn’t feel so weak.

“Don’t be stupid,” Neil snapped. “You and your mother got me thrown in prison so you could get over whatever you think I did to you. Did you get over it? Because it sounds like nothing’s changed. Your mother creates problems and you blame everyone for them but yourself.”

Max bit her fingernail. “Things are better now that you’re gone,” she said. Things had to be better. Last year at this time, Max had just been learning what it was like to fear Neil in the way Billy feared Neil. She had been constantly afraid, and that had only grown worse with each passing month. There was no way things could have been better back then. But yet Max didn’t say it with confidence.

Neil shook his head. Max didn’t know the last time she’d had a two-way conversation with him like this. “You should be grateful for what I did for you as your stepfather,” he growled. “I taught you to be more respectful. It’s a shame you’ve clearly lost that in such a short time.”

The urge to punch him increased. It was strange that she and Neil might be sharing the same feeling; both of them despised the other, but both of them had to suppress it. Max didn’t technically have to suppress it, but the horror that had lodged itself in her since she’d opened the door and seen Neil was like a voice in her head, screaming for her to hold it together.

“Have you got something to say, or are you still a pussy?”

That word. She’d heard him say that to Billy. It was so ridiculous when he did, because Billy was the opposite. Wasn’t she the opposite, too? If Neil’s goal was to make the children he raised the opposite of that word, he had succeeded. He’d gotten what he wanted. “I’m exactly like Billy, and it’s because of you, and he wasn’t _that_ , and I’m not, so are you happy?" Max wasn’t entirely sure her voice was capable of shouting, but she tried, anyway, because she wanted him to know how much she meant what she wanted to say. "Are you proud? Were you proud of how Billy was, because it was all because of you. Are you proud that I’m just like that, too? That was what you wanted?”

Neil scratched his mustache, eyes narrowing. “You have no business talking about Billy,” he said, ignoring everything she’d actually said.

“What?”

“Billy is not your brother anymore. He’s not your family. So how about you never talk about my son again, are we clear?”

Not her brother anymore. Yes, Susan had divorced Neil. But Max hadn’t divorced Billy. She’d wanted to, many times in her life. She’d wanted Billy to go away with Neil, to never see either of them again. But Billy was a permanent resident in her mind, in her life, in the world of things she struggled to understand but cared about anyway.

“Is that clear?”

Max was frozen. “No,” she said. Did she really say that? “No, it’s not clear.” She definitely said that.

Neil’s hand curled into a fist. Max remained frozen. It would be over soon, all of this would be over soon. Neil was going to be gone, from her life and her mother’s life. Thank goodness her mother wasn’t here.

Neil’s fist flattened back out into his hand. “Say what you like then, Maxine. I couldn’t care less what you do, anyway. You’re not my problem anymore. You’re definitely a problem, but not mine. You could die and I wouldn’t care. So let’s just get this done and over with.”

He walked forward abruptly, leaving the living room and going down the hall. Max trailed after him. He got to the garage door and opened it, heading out into the garage. Immediately, Max thought of his car. She’d smashed it, destroyed it. It could technically be driven, but not on the road. What was Neil going to do when he saw it? At the time, she’d been happy to ruin something of his. It had brought her peace. The prospect of being there when Neil saw what she’d done to it was not bringing her peace now.

Neil flicked on the light switch. Max stood next to him, looking out into the garage like she herself didn’t know what was there. There was his car, the same as always: trashed.

“I did it,” Max said without being asked. It was automatic, coming before she could recognize that even if Neil thought her mother did it, he wasn’t going to be able to do anything to her because of it.

The expression on Neil’s face was stony. He looked like he didn’t even believe it. Max didn’t know if she’d ever surprised him before. “Maybe it’s for the best,” he said, surprising her more than she had probably surprised him. For the best?

Max didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t say anything, figuring he would explain. He did.

“I’ll just take Billy’s Camaro,” Neil said. “It’s the better car, anyway. Or did you think I’d leave that here?”

Not really, but now that he said it Max experienced a sense of loss.

“You can keep my car,” he said. “You can learn to drive it. Then you can be reminded of what a mess you are. And if you thought you were every going to drive Billy’s car…well, that wouldn’t make sense, because you and Billy are not related anymore.”

Max didn’t want to keep Neil’s car. She didn’t want it to live in their garage. It was like poison. It had prevented her and her mother from going into the garage for months. That was supposed to be ending now. Neil was supposed to go away and take all his stuff. He wasn’t supposed to leave the car that Max had destroyed. It was a powerful memory, but not a good one. That had been the first day Max had felt her mind grow heavy, the first time she’d realized that irrational actions brought her peace.

She was dumb to have thought this day meant anything at all. Neil was coming and leaving, but he would never be gone.

The next twenty minutes passed in complete and utter silence. Neil took both sets of keys to Billy’s Camaro, drove the car out of the garage, and made Max help him load his boxes into the car. Then he got in the car and drove off, not even saying bye to Max. The ending was so unceremonious that Max watched the Camaro all the way down the street, questioning if it was really over.

The sight of the Camaro driving off was so familiar that it hurt. But it wasn’t Billy driving off. It was Neil, who thought he was taking Billy away from her, too. The point of all of this was for Neil to come here and get away from Max and her mother, to rid them of him. Instead, he was ridding himself of them. They were not rid of him.

Max forced her feet to move forward until she was back at the front door, going inside the house. Every time she came here, she thought of Neil and Billy and what life was like before. It was their house, and it would always be the house she’d seen for the first time with Billy, the house she’d come home to after Starcourt, where she’d had to tell Neil his son was dead. He hadn’t cried, and she resented that he hadn’t cried, because she had cried.

She went to her room, shutting the door and sinking down against it. She’d sat in this position so many times, sighing with relief that she’d escaped Neil. Sighing with relief that she was safe in here, even when Neil was in the kitchen calling Billy a pussy. Why did he have to take the Camaro?

Then she thought of the box. He hadn’t taken the box of pictures. He hadn’t asked where it was. He hadn’t realized it was missing.

Max threw herself forward, pulling it out like she had on the Fourth of July. She remembered what she’d realized then: these weren’t Neil’s pictures, they were Billy’s mother’s. Neil had them only because Billy’s mother had left them behind. Of course Neil didn’t care about them enough to recall that they existed. Of course he hadn’t looked for the box.

He’d taken the Camaro, but the Camaro wasn’t Billy. It was part of Billy, the thing he’d maybe loved the most in the whole world. But that was because there was so little that Billy loved. Max didn’t know if Billy had loved anything.

He’d said he was sorry, on the floor of the mall, before he died. He’d said he was sorry to Max. Did he love Max, or was she deluding herself?

She wasn’t going to cry. Neil was gone. This was good. Why did she have to cry now? These weren’t happy tears. Don’t cry, he’s gone, don’t cry. This was the end. This was the end of Neil. Max had come back to make sure that it really was the end.

Where was her mother? Max had come back because she thought her mother was going to do something stupid. She had sounded so upset over the phone. She was supposed to be here. She was supposed to have been there with Neil, she was supposed to have been the one who handled that. She and Max were supposed to talk after, and she was supposed to tell Max that she was done with Neil and done with Lonnie and everything was going to be okay. She was supposed to be here.

Max shouldn’t have come. She should have stayed with her friends. She had come all this way to fix everything, and she had done nothing but let Neil inside the house and let Neil take the Camaro. Her mother must be with Lonnie. Susan had been so anxious over the phone, she probably had run back to Lonnie to calm her anxiety. Max had been so stupid to think she could come back here and that would be enough.

Nothing would ever be enough.

For god’s sake, she was sitting on her bedroom floor crying like she had done a million times, wishing she weren’t here. Just because she would rather be with her friends. She’d come back to Hawkins to help her mother, who was now missing, and all Max was thinking about was how she’d rather be with her friends.

This was redundant. She’d been here before. She’d done this before. She’d cried and hated herself and missed Billy and blamed her mother. _Stop crying, stop crying, stop crying._

Mike was wrong. Max had told him he was wrong, but he was really, really wrong. This would never get better.

She’d done this before. Neil was gone. This wasn’t going to stop. She was right, she would be like this until she died. She couldn’t do this again. Crying, Billy, her mother. The same pattern, the same thoughts.

Max stood up. She kicked the box as hard as she could. It tipped over, spilling the envelopes of photos out onto her floor. Her feet and hands were tingly. It was like last night, when she looked at them and they didn’t seem like they belonged to her, only worse. She saw everything as though it was all connected and her mind was the only thing that wasn’t connected to it.

She found the doorknob on her bedroom door, flinging it open, more deja-vu. _Run away, like you always do_. She felt the carpet under her toes as she walked down the hall to Billy’s room. Neil would say it wasn’t Billy’s room, that it was an empty room in the house he didn’t live in. But it was Billy’s room. Even someday when a new family moved into this house, it would be Billy’s room.

The posters. The Tank poster, “Filth Hounds of Hades.” Being in Billy’s room was supposed to calm her. She could pretend he was still here, that she was still okay in her head.

But he wasn’t here, and she wasn’t okay in her head. She was scared. She didn’t know what she was scared of. There was no Mind Flayer anymore. There was no Billy to yell at her for being in his room. There was no Neil to yell at her for being in Billy’s room.

She was scared of something else.

She went back to her room. Her San Francisco street car piggy bank was next to the telephone. She didn’t have as much money in there as she used to. She used her money to pay for movies and milkshakes and arcade games now. She didn’t save it to buy a bus ticket, because there was no Neil to run away from. She remembered running away, sleeping in the St. Louis bus station, thinking life couldn’t get any worse than that.

She didn’t want to be here alone anymore. She picked up the receiver on the phone, dialing the number she had dialed so many times since last October to talk to Eleven.

“Hello?” Will.

“Can I talk to Lucas?”

“Max?”

“Can I talk to Lucas?”

A pause.

“Max, it’s Lucas.” She knew it was Lucas without him saying it.

“I saw Neil. He came to get his stuff.”

“Oh my god, are you okay?” He was worried.

“He’s gone now.” She wanted to keep talking, to listen to herself talk. It was equally fascinating and terrifying how she was the one saying the words she was hearing. “He took Billy’s car. He left his car, though. The one I ruined.”

“Wait, Max, are you crying?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

She heard Lucas’s breathing pause. She was freaking him out. “No, it’s okay, I just-”

“I mean I’m sorry for scaring you. I’ve been a terrible friend to all of you. And a terrible, you know…girlfriend. I just want things to go back to the way they were.”

“You don’t have to apologize… Things will go back to the way they were.” He sounded more scared than she was, which hardly seemed possible.

“Come on, they never do,” she scoffed. Her voice cracked. “We keep doing this over and over again.”

“What? That’s not true-”

“I know that it really fucking sucks, but it _is_. You’re on the phone with me, and I’m freaking you out, and you’re supposed to be having fun with your friends. Jesus, I’m such a fucking mess.”

She was going to regret calling him like this. She was acting like the world was ending, but it wasn’t. There would be another day, and another, and the same things would keep happening, and Lucas would remember her calling him like this.

“You’re not freaking me out, Max.” His voice got higher when he lied.

“Yes, I am, and I just called you because…” Because it was like there were voices in her head screaming at her and she thought if she heard a real voice they’d quiet down. Because if Lucas was there then that meant she wasn’t totally alone.

But the voices hadn’t quieted down and she was alone because Lucas wasn’t really there.

“Did you talk to your mom? Is she okay?” He was trying to keep her talking.

“I don’t know where she is, she’s not here. She probably went back to Lonnie. I told you it never ends.” She heard how her words blended together, how quickly she was speaking.

“She’s not there?”

“No, but it’s fine, I don’t care where she is anymore-” She was lying. She did care. She was a liar.

“Max, I promise everything is going to go back to the way it used to be.” Even higher-pitched this time. Lying. Just like her.

She hung up. She stared down at her hand still on the receiver. The phone rang again: Lucas calling back.

She lifted the whole phone up, the cord that connected it to the wall pulling tight. It kept ringing.

She threw it against the wall. It bounced off. The wall didn’t even dent in, but the phone tumbled off of her dresser, the cord ripping out of the wall. She didn’t know how to fix it, which meant her mother was going to see it. When she saw it, she was going to think Max had lost it again. She was going to tell Max she was out of control. That it wasn’t a “normal” response. What was a normal response to the world imploding?

There was more ringing from elsewhere in the house: the other phones, whose cords hadn’t been ripped out of the wall. She walked slowly out of her room, towards the kitchen. The walk she made the first time Lucas ever came to her house. She saw Billy in the living room, lifting weights. She didn’t really see him, didn’t literally hallucinate him, but she could imagine him.

The phone ceased ringing. Lucas wouldn’t call back forever. She went to the kitchen sink to get some water. There, next to it, were the keys to Neil’s car. He had brought them with him but left them behind.

She picked them up, forgetting to get water. She went back down the hall, to the garage.

There was the car. She remembered the release she’d gotten each time she’d struck it with the baseball bat. She thought that day was a good day, objectively. Neil had gone away. Everyone had celebrated. Max had known he would come back, that it would be sooner than it sounded. It hadn’t been soon, though, she realized. That day was so long ago.

The car couldn’t stay here. She wanted to search the garage for the baseball bat and destroy the car all over again. But even if she did, it would still be there, parked next to the empty spot where Billy’s Camaro should be.

She looked at the keys in her hand. Fear ran through her.

She was afraid like this when she was beating up that boy, almost two months ago.

She was afraid of herself.

_Go back inside._

_Call Lucas._

_Wait for your mother._

_Don’t be stupid._

She stood in front of the car. The metal of the door was squashed, but it opened when she twisted the key in the door and pulled on the handle.

She got in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I WROTE WAY TOO MUCH for this chapter like if I had an editor they'd be cutting out whole sections of text so I apologize. I put on sad music and was like getting into this breakdown mentality and came away from it and was like this needs to be culled. So I killed some of it but couldn't bring myself to kill more and I apologize. If you skimmed it don't feel bad I would too.
> 
> Also I know these scenes can get redundant, I tried to emphasize that even Max knew she did this too much but I swear this is the last scene quite like this. We are hitting the climax of the story obviously.


	14. The Crash

After the fact, Max wouldn’t remember why exactly she was driving the car. She thought it was to destroy it so badly that it couldn’t live in their garage anymore. This was the last, biggest thing of Neil that remained. She wanted to wreck it. But she didn’t know if that was the only reason. She knew she wasn’t in her right mind, because she felt herself thinking thoughts but struggled to remember even seconds later what they were.

Backing out of the garage had been the hardest part. She’d never driven in reverse. It was crazy that her mind could be moving so fast while her hands moved so slow, clinging to the steering wheel to keep it straight while she let off the brake and the car rolled out of the garage.

Maybe a neighbor would see her driving and stop her and she wouldn’t have to decide if she truly wanted to do this. How was she going to wreck the car? Deep down she knew–it was one of the thoughts she’d thought and blanked out–and she was afraid.

She turned the wheel so the car was in the middle of the road, facing forward. She positioned her foot over the gas and pressed down. She hadn’t driven since she’d driven her friends and Steve in Billy’s Camaro. At least it wasn’t dark now. The car picked up speed quickly. It felt like she was hurtling down the road, but a glance at the speedometer told her she was only going twenty-two. The speed limit was twenty-five, so she was probably fine.

She twisted the wheel slightly so she was further to the right of the road. She couldn’t believe she was really in control of this car right now, that she was no longer in her house but in the middle of the road. The windshield was one of the few parts of the car that was fully intact, so she could see where she was going. But because she was inside the car, or maybe because she was inside her head, it didn’t feel like she was really where her eyes told her she was.

She kept driving down the street, gently pushing down more on the gas until she realized there was a stop sign up ahead and she had to slam on the brake. The seatbelt locked into place as the car lurched back. She sat there for a moment, questioning herself, then pressed back down onto the gas.

There was a voice in Max’s head telling her to stop, to go back, but there was another, louder voice in her head telling her strength came from ignoring the other voice. It was just fear, and what she was doing was right. If she stopped, she wasn’t going to be better off. There was no future there. She didn’t know if there was a future in general. Her heart pounded as if she were running away from something that was going to hurt her. _Shut up, shut up, shut up_.

She had no idea where she was going. She hadn’t turned, was still going down the same road. She was going to have to turn soon. She was putting off the inevitable. This was what she wanted, so why was she putting it off?

This was what she wanted.

The front seat was not adjusted to accommodate her height. Her mother was much taller than her, as was Neil, and the seat was so high up that Max had barely been able reach her feet to the pedals when she got in. She’d pushed the seat forward so that she could reach, but she now sat extremely close to the steering wheel. Was it safe for her to be so close? Did she care? She thought she cared. She wanted to wreck the car. She didn’t want _that_.

But she wasn’t dumb. She kept clearing the recognition out of her mind, refusing to examine it, but it was still there.

Her head was screaming. It would be over soon. That was what she had always told herself when Neil was about to hurt her. If she dissociated herself from everything, waited it out, then eventually the storm would end until it came back, a day or two or a week later. This was just like that, only it wasn’t.

She didn’t want the storm to come back ever again. It made sense that this would end it. She didn’t know why, but it just did.

She twisted the wheel a full ninety degrees to the right and the car made a wide, shaky turn onto a different road. The road curved and narrowed out. She recognized it; it was the road to the graveyard where Billy was buried. There were many trees along the road, but no cars coming in either direction.

She was breathing frantically, like there wasn’t enough air in the world to fill her lungs. She took one hand off the steering wheel to shove her hair out of her face and it swerved only slightly. The further she sped down the road, the harder it was to distinguish between the mixed messages her thoughts were giving her. She kept thinking of Lucas, and what he would say if he knew what she was doing.

It was too late. She was here in the car. She felt relieved that it was too late, that the decision was made for her. But then, it wasn’t too late. She could turn around, drive back. The relief was gone.

_Stop stalling. Stop it._

She tightened her grip on the wheel. She inhaled. She noticed how the tree branches wavered slightly. There must be a breeze. It was hot in the car, but not stifling. The warm was sort of nice, really. She saw a bird on a tree as the car moved past it. The moment grew longer and longer.

She exhaled and twisted the steering wheel. She was now at an angle, driving directly towards a tree.

It was so sturdy. She stared at it as it came closer. She didn’t know it would be like this. She thought it would feel fake like everything else, and it did, but it also was so real. That tree was real.

Just seconds now.

She took her foot off the gas completely. She thought her heart might not be beating.

This was real.

Her hands were hovering on the wheel, her grip slack, her back flattened as far away from the dashboard as it could be.

All thoughts of if this was or was not what she wanted disappeared. Everything disappeared but the tree and the reality of it.

_NO._

_Make it stop. Somebody, make it stop._

She was somebody.

Her foot was on the brake, pushing down as hard as she had ever pushed. She heard the car’s tires screeching on the paved road and felt the extreme force of the seatbelt on her shoulder, but the tree still loomed closer. She realized she had to swerve and moved her hands to do so, but the tree was inches from the car and it was going to hit it and she hadn’t made it stop.

She squeezed her eyes shut at the collision, foot never leaving the brake. She felt herself be jerked backwards, her head colliding with the metal bars attached to the headrest, and her hands flew involuntarily to the back of her head. Her legs went up, foot finally coming off the brake, and her knees banged into the bottom of the dashboard. She heard crushing sounds that she couldn’t isolate but saw nothing.

Even when there was no more noise, when Max was just sitting still in the front seat still fully conscious, she kept her eyes shut. Every part of her was shaking, but she held herself frozen in place, stunned.

She wasn’t dead. Was she? No, she wasn’t dead.

She slowly removed her hands from the back of her head. Her arms were stiff.

It was probably less than a minute ago that she had first turned the steering wheel towards the tree. It was probably only seconds that the car had hurtled towards it.

She felt like she had just been woken up by an alarm clock and if she opened her eyes her sleep would truly end.

Had she done what she’d intended to do? Had she wrecked the car? If she had, and she wasn’t dead, then she had succeeded. She didn’t know how badly she did not want to die until now when it had been so frighteningly close.

She wasn’t dead. Was she okay? She had to open her eyes. She had to wake up. This wasn’t a dream. This was real life. The pain in her head was not fake.

She slowly raised her eyelids and blinked to focus her vision. The burst of light was nausea-inducing.

The windshield was cracked in multiple places, but not so badly that Max couldn’t see through it. The entire front of the car was dented inwards, the edges curving around the sides of the tree. Max was no mechanic, but she didn’t think that was fixable.

Inside the car, there wasn’t really any visible damage. Max rotated her head to look at the passenger’s side and thought she might genuinely vomit from the motion.

The idea that the car might spontaneously explode like they did in movies occurred to Max far later than it should have. Her mind was not working correctly. Well, it hadn’t been working correctly before, but now something was truly wrong. She knew it from the way it ached to formulate a full English sentence in her head. Before, she hadn’t cared to do that, had been running on some kind of obsession that had overtaken her. Now, all obsessions were gone, all concerns momentarily suspended in this grey space that she couldn’t quite reach.

She rotated her head around the other way very slowly, closing her fingers around the handle of the car door. She pushed it, but it didn’t open. She hadn’t unlocked the doors. She found the button and pressed it, hearing the locks click, and then pushed on the door handle again. The door swung open.

She stumbled out of the car, her feet landing on the uneven terrain that was beside the road, where the trees were. Another wave of nausea came over her and she closed her eyes again, holding her arms out like a zombie as she stepped further away from the car.

When she felt the hardness of asphalt under her shoes, she opened her eyes and sank down into a sitting position at the edge of the road. Legs out in front of her, she saw that her knees were bruising rapidly, their pale skin tinged reddish-purple in patches.

She might not be dead, but she had no idea what she was supposed to do. She wasn’t thinking straight, and every attempt she made to assess her situation only intensified her headache. It wasn’t a normal kind of headache, either; the top of her head felt like there was a balloon inside of it, making it lighter, while there was a simultaneous stabbing pain centered in the middle of her head.

Where was she? She didn’t quite remember. The graveyard, she thought. That was around ten minutes from her house by car, so at least a few miles. Was she by the graveyard? It was the road, but she didn’t know where she was on it.

She was going to throw up. She tried to empty her mind, to think of nothing but a blank white screen of nothingness. She felt slightly better.

A car was coming. Max slid her legs inwards so they didn’t extend out into the road, but the car appeared on the other side of the street. It slowed down, then stopped. She didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

A woman exited the car. Max didn’t recognize her. Her eyes were wide in horror at the sight. “Are you all right?” She exclaimed, jogging across the road towards Max. “Did you crash?”

 _No shit_. Max didn’t know if it would make her sick to talk, but she was going to have to try. “Yeah,” she said, sort of to both questions. It was technically only true for the second, but it wasn’t like she was dead.

“Do you need to go to the hospital?”

Did she? Max didn’t think she’d ever been to the hospital for herself. She couldn’t remember properly. She had crashed a car into a tree. She didn’t even have a license. “No.”

“Are you sure? You have to call 911.” Max wondered if this woman was the mother of someone who went to her school. She was probably safe.

“Can you drive me home?” Max asked. She tried to sound confident. “I’ll call 911 from there. It’s not far away.” Some amount of time less than ten minutes.

Max used her hands to push herself up so that she was standing again. The woman frowned at her but nodded after a moment. “Okay. Are your parents there?”

Max had completely forgotten about her mother’s existence. She was surely still gone. Max hated that a small part of her hoped her mother _would_ be there. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do. Maybe if her mother knew what Max had done, she’d understand how messed up everything was. But Max seriously doubted that her mother was there.

“Yeah,” she said. “They’ll know what to do.”

She walked to the other side of the woman’s car and opened the passenger side door. She was slightly and unnecessarily nervous about getting inside. Feeling the gaze of the woman on her, she stepped into the car and pulled the door shut next to her. She gently rested her head back against the headrest, the pressure strangely relieving some of the pain.

The woman started the engine. “How do you get back to your house?” She asked.

Max hesitated, then said, “Just drive straight and then turn left after the road curves. And my house is on that street.” It hadn’t been very long ago that she’d been driving that path the opposite way.

There was no effort made to have a conversation, which Max was grateful for. She was growing increasingly tired. Talking and thinking was exhausting.

The car turned left, back onto Max’s street. She could’ve sworn it had taken her longer to travel that distance. Had she been going slowly? Or had it just felt like time was moving slower? Max didn’t think she’d been going slowly. She had pushed so hard on the brake and still hit the tree. She didn’t remember seeing the tree hit the car, though. Had her eyes been closed?

“That’s it,” Max said. They were almost to her house. She pointed, then did a double take. There was a car in front of her house.

Not her mother’s car. Steve’s car.

The car she was riding in stopped. Max opened the door without turning her head to look at it. She had learned her lesson. She was carsick, but the pressure of the headrest against her head had prevented her from being sick while they were driving. Now that her head was no longer against it but exiting the car with her body, the nausea had returned.

“Who’s that?” The woman asked, gesturing towards Max’s house. Max twisted her shoulders so that she was facing the porch.

Steve. He stood on the porch, looking at her. He was too far away and her vision wasn’t clear enough to see what his expression was. But he was here.

“My brother,” Max said vaguely. “He’ll help me. Thank you.”

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

Max didn’t even bother to look back at the woman. “Yes.”

She lifted her feet, making them move forward. Steve was hurrying towards her, quicker than she could possibly move right now. She heard the woman’s car drive off behind her.

“Can you tell me what’s going on here?” Steve demanded, now right in front her. She stopped walking. “Who was that woman dropping you off?”

Max clearly didn’t look as bad as she felt, if it wasn’t immediately obvious that something was wrong. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Some random lady. Why are you here?”

She felt irrationally upset that her mother wasn’t here. She hadn’t truly expected she’d be here, but Steve being here instead was further evidence of her mother’s own absence.

“Okay, because…” Steve reached up to touch his hair. “Because Lucas called and said he was scared you were going to do something bad. I was knocking for, like, five minutes.”

Max swallowed. His voice wasn’t loud, but it was louder than the woman’s had been. She was extremely anxious at how light her head felt and at how tired she was becoming. Ever since she’d crashed, she couldn’t stop thinking the same thing over and over again: she didn’t want to die. There was logic somewhere in her that knew it was unlikely that she was dying, but she felt both terrible and helpless and these feelings were both growing worse.

“Sorry, I know I scared him,” Max responded absently. “I’m not dead.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” Steve was looking past her like he might get answers that way. “Where were you?”

Max saw the tree in her mind’s eye, then the way the windshield had cracked. “Can we just both agree that I’m not dead?”

“What?”

Max sighed. Her hands trembled at her sides, but she wouldn’t let her voice shake when she spoke. “I crashed my stepdad’s car. It hit…a tree. I’m not dead.”

Steve breathed in, expression totally flat for a second. “Jesus Christ,” he said more quietly than he’d been speaking before. “Yeah, you’re not dead, kid.”

The way he said it made Max want to cry, though she didn’t. It was nice to hear someone else say it. She wasn’t dead and she wasn’t in that car anymore and she wasn’t going to die.

“You look okay,” Steve continued, eyes doing a once-over of her. “Are you okay?”

Max blinked, keeping her eyes closed for longer than was normal. “I hit my head. I don’t know.”

“Okay,” Steve said evenly. “Let’s go to the ER.”

The ER. “No, it’s not-”

“No, you’re going to get your ass in the car and we’re going to the emergency room.”

She didn’t argue. She didn’t even want to.

Steve moved past her, on the way to his car, and she turned around slowly to follow him. He noticed her falling behind and went back to her, placing his arm on her shoulder and guiding her to the car. He held the door open for her and she got in, dreading another car ride.

Max hadn’t been able to close her eyes in the car with the woman because she’d had to direct her to her house, but she felt okay doing it now, resting her head back against the headrest. Steve started the car and she felt the motion of it moving.

“Don’t go to sleep, kid,” he said, soon after the car had started. “Until they say what’s wrong with your head.”

She knew he was right, but sleep was coming and it was hard to stop it. She forced her eyes back open. Steve glanced at her. She knew what he was thinking.

“I know what Lucas said,” Max said, pushing her head harder into the headrest like it might ease her headache even more. “But that’s not why I drove the car into a tree. I tried to stop it. I hit the brake.”

Steve frowned. “Why were you driving?”

She didn’t think that she could even think of lies right now if she wanted to lie. “I wanted to ruin his car. I wanted to wreck it. But not because I wanted to die. I _didn’t_. Okay?”

“You can’t plan to crash a car and not know you might die, Max. I’m sorry, but that’s bullshit.”

It was bullshit. Max hadn’t been that dumb. She felt guilty, and she didn’t know who the guilt was directed at. “I guess I knew I might,” she admitted. “But I didn’t want to. I promise, Steve. I tried to stop it.”

The hospital was close to Max’s house. She recognized the street they were on; they were already almost there. Steve glanced at her again. “You tried to stop the car? Or yourself?”

Max felt like he was seeing all the way through her. It was uncomfortable. Terrifying. She always worked so hard to avoid people seeing her like that. But right now, sitting in Steve’s car, she didn’t feel like herself. This moment didn’t feel like normal life. She remembered crying in her bedroom, how she did it over and over again and nothing ever changed. That was why she hadn’t allowed herself to care about what would happen when she crashed the car. But she had cared.

“Both,” she said softly. “I did. I know I crashed, but I braked really hard. It’s not bullshit.”

Steve’s car was turning into the emergency parking lot of Hawkins Memorial. Steve didn’t say anything until he had secured a spot near the front, then he turned his head to look right at her. “Listen, you told me it’s hell living in your head.”

She had said that. She’d meant it. But instead of reaffirming it, she offered him a small smile. “It’s more like the Upside Down. I don’t want to be there anymore.”

Steve returned her smile. His eyes were still heavily worried, but she could tell that his smile was real. “Okay, I’ll buy that you didn’t want to die,” he said, like she’d merely said she didn’t want to skip school or she didn’t want to go to the arcade. “Now let’s go inside before you do.”

They both got out of the car and headed into the emergency entrance of the hospital. Max expected it to be busy, because she had always heard that emergency rooms had extremely long wait times. However, only a couple people were sitting in the waiting room, and none of them looked like they themselves had an emergency.

There was a line at the front to wait for the triage nurse. Max stood with Steve, resting slightly against the plastic sign that denoted the beginning of the line. A nurse came out to them after less than a minute, holding a clipboard.

“What brings you here?” She asked. Max hadn’t had time to think about what she was going to tell people at the ER. She didn’t know if it would affect her ability to get a driver’s license if they found out she had driven without one.

“She was in a car accident,” Steve supplied. “She hit her head.”

Max smiled awkwardly as a confirmation of the information. The nurse questioned her about her specific symptoms, and she explained how her head felt light but also hurt badly. She didn’t really understand the purpose of being asked these questions in the waiting room, because right after the nurse told her there was no wait and she could come back. Steve said he had to make a phone call and left Max to be led back into the emergency department and to an exam room.

* * *

An hour later, Max had been diagnosed with a concussion. The emergency room doctor had told her she should go home and rest and discharged her.

Max was now back in Steve’s car, holding onto a bunch of papers she didn’t plan on ever reading. They had given her Aspirin at the ER, but she was still exhausted.

“Mrs. Wheeler said you can spend the night there,” Steve informed Max as they both fastened their seatbelts.

Mrs. Wheeler? While objectively Max much preferred to be at the Wheelers’ than at her own house, she had a house and a mother of her own. Even in all the stress of the ER, her mother had been at the forefront of her mind. Max had to go home, had to see her.

“No, I have to go home,” Max insisted. At least the Aspirin had curbed much of her headache, which had stopped her from being so sick. “I have to see my mom.”

Steve shrugged. “I thought she wasn’t there. That’s why I called Mrs. Wheeler.”

“She’s supposed to be there.”

Steve made a confused face at her. “Okay, but…is she there?”

“Do I look like I’m there right now? Do you think I know?”

Steve probably didn’t miss the worry in her voice, because he raised his eyebrows at her. “You can’t be worrying about your mother right now. You’re supposed to rest, and all that other shit the doctor said. I’m sure your mother’s fine.”

But Steve didn’t understand. Although her head was still foggy, Max could not forget the way her mother had sounded on the phone. She was supposed to be there when Neil came. She was supposed to be there after. She was supposed to be there now. Was she there now? “I have to go home,” Max insisted. “Just let me see if she’s there.”

“Okay, whatever, but if she’s not there you’re going to the Wheelers’. Do I make myself clear?”

“ _Yes_ , oh my god.”

Steve started driving out the emergency parking lot. Max clasped her hands together in her lap, squeezing her fingers so hard she thought she might cut off their circulation.

Her mother would be there. She would be there and she would see Max and she would say _I’m so sorry, I should have been there, it’s my fault you drove a car into a tree. I broke up with Lonnie and I love you._

She would be there.

Five minutes passed. They pulled up in front of Max’s house.

She wasn’t there.

Max searched the street frantically with her eyes, like her mother might have parked elsewhere.

“Are you going to go inside to see if she’s here, or are you just going to sit in the car?” Steve asked, clearly not getting that Max already knew her mother wasn’t there by the absence of her car.

Max unclasped her hands. Her knuckles were white. “She’s not here. Her car’s not here.”

“Oh.”

Max hit the dashboard, frustrated. She had hit it far too lightly to hurt it, but Steve held his arm out in front of the dashboard looking scandalized. “No need to take it out on my car!”

She continued frowning. He removed his arm from the dashboard, looking at her more intently now that he knew she was genuinely very concerned about the fact her mother wasn’t there. “I’m sure she’s fine, Max, seriously.”

Max bit down on her lip. “Can you, like, take me back to Illinois? That’s where I’m supposed to be.” She didn’t want to talk about her mother. She didn’t want to explain why she was so worried. She didn’t really know why, but this was freaking her out.

“Uh, no?”

“Please.”

“You don’t want to go to Illinois anyway,” he said vaguely. “Assuming you want to see your friends and you don’t just want to see the wonders of the great state of Illinois.”

Max’s eyes widened. “They’re coming back?”

Steve nodded. “I called them from the hospital. Jonathan’s mom is driving all of them up. To the _Wheelers’_. Which is fitting, because that’s where we’re going now.”

Max rolled her eyes. She was doing an okay job of pretending her chest didn’t literally ache with worry. “Fine.”

Steve restarted the car and a minute later she couldn’t even see her house if she twisted around in her seat. Her mother could come back any minute and she wouldn’t know.

Conversely, her mother could _not_ come back any minute and she wouldn’t know that, either.

While Max’s mother was not home, Mike’s was. She ushered Max into the kitchen and thanked Steve for bringing her by, talking to him in a hushed voice. Max watched them interact curiously; though she knew they were talking about her behind her back, she was more interested in how nice Mrs. Wheeler was to Steve considering he was her daughter’s ex-boyfriend. Mike had told his friends all kinds of stories about Steve sneaking into their house and having sex with Nancy.

Steve waved goodbye to Max, leaving her at the mercy of Mrs. Wheeler. Max didn’t know what Mrs. Wheeler had been told, but she gathered that it had something to do with a car crash and likely didn’t include the part where Max herself had crashed the car. Max appreciated this.

“Steve said you have a concussion,” Mrs. Wheeler said sympathetically. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah.” Max didn’t know if she had ever answered no to that question. “I’m just tired. Could I take a nap?”

She knew Mrs. Wheeler would not say no, especially to that but probably to anything. She was probably thinking about the last time they had been alone together, the night Neil had been arrested. It was odd, but Max thought she almost felt worse than she had that night. She had been drained, then, but hadn’t actually been that injured. Now, not only did it feel like her head was partially detached from her body, but she was overloaded with thoughts about her mother and her whereabouts.

“How about you take Nancy’s room?” Mrs. Wheeler suggested. “I’m sure Nancy won’t mind.”

But Max didn’t even want to sleep in Nancy’s room. She wanted to go to the exact same place she’d gone that night after Mrs. Wheeler had driven her home from the police station. “I’ll sleep on the couch in the basement,” she said.

“Oh, honey, that’s not very comfortable…”

“I don’t mind,” Max pushed. “Thanks for letting me stay here.”

“Of course, but you don’t have to-”

“I don’t mind.”

Max followed the familiar route through the house to the basement. She opened the door to the basement and thudded down the stairs, the bouncing jostling her head uncomfortably. She went over to the couch, took off her shoes, and fell down onto it, lowering her head onto one of the pillows. There was no blanket, as no one had slept on the couch in over a week, but it was hot down there anyway.

Max closed her eyes. She was so tired. Was it okay that she wanted to sleep when her mother was still gone? It wasn’t like there was anything she could do. She hated that there was nothing she could do. But if she went to sleep, she’d wake up and maybe her mother would have called.

Maybe her mother would have gone to Max’s room and seen that the phone cord had been ripped out of the wall and wondered why. Maybe she would have called Mrs. Wheeler to ask if she knew anything and Mrs. Wheeler would have told her that yes, Max was sleeping in their basement. Maybe she would have gotten in her car and driven over and when Max woke up she would be in the Wheelers’ living room, thanking Mrs. Wheeler for being there for Max but assuring her that she could handle it now.

It was probably because Max had been hit in the head that she was thinking like this. She didn’t care about her mother. She cared that she didn’t marry someone who would ruin their family. She cared that she had left Max to fend for herself with Neil. But she didn’t care that she wasn’t here now.

She was lying to herself. She did care.

Maybe if she woke up, her mother would be there and Max could tell her to her face that she didn’t care about her.

Maybe she wouldn’t do that.

* * *

Max’s head seared with pain. It was everywhere, across all surfaces of her brain and her skull and everything else that in any way related to her head.

She was in the Wheelers’ basement. She’d crashed Neil’s car. She’d gone to the hospital. She hadn’t died. She remembered. She had a concussion, though.

Her mother.

She jumped up so quickly that her head shook and she had to shut her eyes again momentarily. When she opened them, she found the clock on the wall. She got up and moved toward it until she was close enough to read it. It was just after nine o’clock. From how dark it was in the basement, she knew it was nighttime and not morning. She hadn’t slept that long.

She had slept for almost five hours, though. That was enough time.

She whirled around and jogged to the basement stairs. Her hair hung awkwardly behind her. She probably looked like shit right now.

She cleared the stairs and slowed her pace now that she was in the main part of the house. She listened to see if she could hear anyone talking, but she couldn’t. Remembering her delusions earlier about her mother waiting for her in the living room, she moved through the house to the living room.

Only Mrs. Wheeler was there, reading a book. She looked up when she heard Max come in.

“You’re awake! How do you feel?”

Max ignored the question. She felt horrible. “Did my mom call?”

Mrs. Wheeler’s face contorted into a motherly expression that gave Max her answer without Mrs. Wheeler speaking real words. “I’m sorry, she hasn’t. I’m sure she just has no idea you’re not still with your friends in Illinois, honey.”

That was true. But when Susan came home, she would see that Neil had taken all of his boxes. Max didn’t know if Neil would have been able to do that without her.

“Your friends are here,” Mrs. Wheeler said. “They’re all upstairs in Mike’s room. They didn’t want to wake you up. But they really want to talk to you.”

Of course they wanted to talk to her. She knew what they were going to say to her. But even though she knew, even though she knew how they were going to react to seeing her, she did want to see them desperately.

It wasn’t like she could go home right now by herself and send up a smoke signal to call her mother back home. Her mother had chosen not to be there. She would choose to come back.

Billy’s mother had not chosen to come back. Billy had loved his mother so much. She had to be a good person.

_Stop thinking that. That’s bullshit._

She wanted to see her friends.

“I’ll go upstairs then,” Max said to Mrs. Wheeler.

“Okay. Don’t let them talk you into staying up if you want to sleep.”

Max didn’t think that was going to be a problem.

She headed down the front hall to the stairs. At least her concussion was doing one thing for her: she couldn’t think about twenty-five different things at once when her head struggled to think clearly about even one.

For now, she was going to think about her friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a concussion from falling backwards on the ice while ice skating and that is entirely what I based my remembrance of what a concussion is like. Damn this story is selfish I'm just like this was my experience let me just assume Max feels the same way okay
> 
> I feel like I always have unnecessary things to say in these notes but today I don't haha other than wow I need to do my homework I'm posting this like an hour later than normal
> 
> Oh my god also I know she just left the car there but I'm assuming someone like called someone about it and it just didn't reach Max haha


	15. Gone

Max heard her friends’ voices coming through Mike’s bedroom door when she had barely reached the top of the stairs. His room was further down the hall, past Nancy’s, so she couldn’t make out what they were saying. She just heard the unmistakable rhythm of their voices talking over each other.

She hesitated at the end of the hall, hand still hovering over the banister. There was something comforting about the sounds of their voices without real meaning and words behind them. She missed them, as if they weren’t right there down the hall from her. She missed being there to join in on their conversations, when she had done so without being aware that that might ever disappear. She knew she hadn’t totally disappeared, not in the way that she acted towards them, but the way she felt about it had changed.

She was so separate from them in this moment, standing there and listening without them knowing she was there. But for a short time, she could pretend she was just hearing them on her way down the hall to hang out with them like normal. She could pretend that she knew what was going to happen when she knocked on Mike’s door.

She let go of the banister. She couldn’t stay on the outside like this forever. She wanted to see them.

She walked down the hall, the carpet creaking slightly despite the controlled softness of her footsteps. The voices coming from Mike’s room faded. Gone before she even knocked.

She didn’t have to knock at all. Mike’s door flew open before she reached it. Lucas stood in the doorway, his face shrouded in shadow against the background of light that was Mike’s room. There was a pressure behind her eyes, not from the concussion but from within her. She hadn’t cried when she’d crashed the car, but tears pricked her eyes now, all of her feelings suddenly suspended at the sight of him.

He ran towards her, out of Mike’s room and into the hall where her feet had stopped carrying her forward. She saw her other friends’ faces in the doorway before he was hugging her so tightly that she couldn’t see anything but the darkness of his shirt pressed against her face. She hugged him back, feeling her eyes grow wetter.

Max didn’t think of herself as someone who needed other people to be okay, but the tightness with which Lucas clung onto her told her _he_ needed _her_. And the way her tears came only now, the feeling of relief that washed over her at him being here, made her realize how wrong she was to think that she didn’t need other people. That was what she had been doing wrong, all along.

For a minute, she forgot that her head ached, forgot that she had no idea where her mother was, forgot the image of the tree and all the terror she had felt in the past twenty-four hours.

When Lucas let go, she saw in the dim light of the hall that his eyes were shining, too. She brushed her hand over her own cheeks, looking past Lucas to her friends. They rushed out of Mike’s room. Eleven got to Max first, and Max reached her own arms out to hug her. She was glad that El was here, too, that Joyce had brought all of them back to Hawkins.

She withdrew from the hug finally and followed her friends into Mike’s bedroom. Mike shut the door and Max stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. She’d worried that she might feel like a spectacle with all of them looking at her, but she didn’t. They weren’t looking at her like she alone was insane, but like they shared the horrors that she experienced. She had been scared of herself, but they had been scared, too. She didn’t know which was worse: being scared of what you might do or being scared of what someone you loved was going to do when you couldn’t control it and didn’t know what was going to happen. She thought the first was probably still worse, but the second had to be pretty bad.

“Steve said you have a concussion,” Lucas said, sitting down on the floor. Max sat down next to him, not wanting to be in the middle. “From crashing your stepdad’s car.”

“Did you really hit a _tree_?” Dustin asked incredulously.

“We thought you might-” Mike started, then cut himself off.

“Be gone,” El finished for him. She sat down beside Max. “Lucas said-”

“I didn’t know,” Lucas interrupted hurriedly. His eyes were still glistening. He wasn’t one of those boys that literally never cried, like Billy, but Max didn’t know the last time that she had seen him cry. “There was, like, forty-five minutes where we didn’t know.”

Max remembered. She’d broken the phone in her room, taken the keys, gone to the garage, and started the car. Then she had driven away, seen the tree, tried not to crash, and crashed. There was the woman who drove her home and Steve and the ER. Steve had called them from the waiting room. That whole time, they hadn’t known.

“I’m sorry, okay?” Max said. She was sorry. She knew what it was like to worry about people, and not even in that way. She was worried her mother was gone, but in the normal way, not the Eleven way. If she thought her mother might be gone in the Eleven way, she didn’t know what she’d do.

“Well, it’s not about that,” Lucas said. “Because you’re okay, right? Other than your head…”

“My head being fucked up, yeah,” Max responded, trying to joke. None of her friends laughed, but she figured the humor might relax them slightly regardless. They most definitely did not seem relaxed. “Okay, listen, you guys, I know I drove a car into a tree-”

Dustin’s eyes widened at the confirmation, despite her friends obviously already knowing.

“-but it wasn’t for the reason you think. I swear, seriously.”

“Steve said that,” Will told her. “But did you mean it? It just seems like…I don’t know.”

“You were so upset, Max,” Lucas said, clearly agreeing with Will’s doubts. “You wouldn’t answer the phone. It’s okay.”

Max shook her head. The sensation of her head moving seemed to lag so that when she’d stopped, she could still feel the lightness of her head more acutely than when it was still. Distracted by this, she paused before saying, “No, I promise. I want to be here. I want to be a sophomore and for everything to be how it always is. My stepdad’s car, it was like this proof of everything that happened. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“You promise?” El said.

Lucas was frowning. “Max, you said things would never go back to the way they were-”

“What, are you saying I was right?” Max raised her eyebrows.

She was kidding, but Lucas answered her before she even finished getting the last word out. “ _No_ , of course not, you just said it.” It was nice to hear him say no.

“Come on, Max,” Mike protested, “you drove into a tree.”

Exactly what Steve had said. She got it. The way she had felt driving that car was steadily becoming more of a mystery to her. She couldn’t conjure it back, whether because her head was concussed or because she would never feel that way again, she didn’t know. She hoped it was the latter, but wasn’t going to hold her breath.

“Listen to me,” she said evenly, focusing all of her attention on getting this right. “I know it was crazy. Like, I _knew_ it was crazy. I knew you can’t crash a car and not maybe die. I was so scared, but there was this voice in my head telling me I had to do it. Not like a _voice_ , okay, I’m not insane, just like a voice. That was me. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” Will replied. “I know what you mean.”

Lucas stared at her, but his expression was soft. A good sign.

“It was literally scary as hell,” she went on. She squirmed slightly at being so honest with them, but she was trying to do something new. “Like, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. But then I was going to crash and I didn’t want to. At all. I just couldn’t stop it in time. But if I hadn’t braked and tried to stop it, I might have died for real. I didn’t because I didn’t want to. And I’m so, so glad I didn’t. I _promise_. Do you believe me?”

Nobody answered her immediately. They were all looking at her, digesting what she’d said. Though Max had bared her feelings to them, she didn’t mind being the center of attention like this. Right now, she didn’t feel like she was lesser than them for being screwed up. It was like she had a different perspective than them on something that had affected all of them and she was teaching them how to see it differently.

“I do.” Lucas spoke first. She twisted her head so it was facing his, less than a foot between them. There was so much relief in his eyes. She realized she wasn’t just reassuring them that she hadn’t been trying to kill herself tonight. She was reassuring them that, in general, she was going to be okay.

Her friends murmured agreement around the room. They were all sitting in a circle now on the floor, despite there being other, more comfortable places to sit.

“We’ve been scared for ages that you were going to do something so crazy that you’d die,” Dustin said, maybe a little too abruptly. Max didn’t mind his brazenness, but the knowledge of just how frightened her friends had been because of her made her a bit guilty.

“I know,” Max said quietly. “Me, too.”

“You, too?” El questioned.

“I told Steve it’s like the Upside Down,” Max said. “It’s like I know I’m technically in the same place I used to be, and everyone is there, but it’s not the same. And I hate who I am when I’m in there. Which is, like, all the time.”

“Are you there now?” Will asked.

Max didn’t know how he thought to ask her that. Was she? If she didn’t think about her mother, which she was doing her best not to, she felt okay. If not okay, different. “Yeah,” she admitted, “but you guys are here, too.” She smiled so they’d get that this was a good thing.

“I don’t want to be in the Upside Down,” Dustin said jokingly.

She rolled her eyes, but said somewhat seriously, “Neither do I.”

As if this statement alone prompted it, Lucas said, “You have to let someone help you, Max.”

“We had to tell Will’s mom, so she’d drive us here,” Mike said. “She said she’d talk to your mom.”

Will nodded. “Remember when they used to say there was something wrong in my head? My mom didn’t get it, but she tried. She’s going to help you.”

 _Talk to her mom_. Max didn’t know how that conversation would go. She had been waiting all day to learn her mother’s reaction to her crashing the car. She assumed that after that, her mother would be receptive to Joyce, would work harder to understand her. But her mother was still MIA.

“Thank you,” Max told them distantly. She was grateful, truly. Joyce was going to help her. Joyce was going to talk to her mom and make her understand. “Did she say when she was going to talk to my mom?”

Lucas shrugged. “I don’t know, I guess tomorrow. She has to work tomorrow morning but she said she’d come back.” Though it was the least important thing among everything else, Max couldn’t help but think of how much gas money all this driving was costing Will’s family. She’d have to get her mother to pay them back for some of it.

“Okay.” Tomorrow. Her mother would be back tomorrow. She would choose to believe it until it was tomorrow and her mother wasn’t back.

“You should probably go to bed, you kind of look like shit,” Mike said.

Max made a face at him. “Yeah? You don’t look too good, either, but you don’t have an excuse.”

Lucas laughed, and Max’s sarcasm dissipated, her starting to laugh, too. The rest of her friends joined in, the tenseness of the situation ebbing away. Max’s head hurt slightly from shaking, but she didn’t care.

Despite having challenged what Mike said, Max was tired, and she got up. “I am going to go to sleep,” she announced. Then, glaring at Mike, she added, “So I’ll look even more perfect tomorrow.”

Talking about what time it was (it was after nine-thirty), they made their way out of Mike’s bedroom and to the staircase. They went down it in a line, Max leading the way with Lucas close behind. She stopped by the front door, knowing Lucas and Dustin were probably going to go home.

Lucas pulled Max by the wrist so that they were standing practically against the door, slightly separate from the group.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” he whispered. He didn’t really have to whisper it. He could have said it in front of their friends. But there was an intensity in it that was even stronger in whisper form.

She squinted her eyes, smiling. “I am, too. I promise you there’s not going to be any more of this bullshit.”

“Okay, good. But if there is, don’t drive any more cars. You’re not very good at it.”

“Hey, at least I can drive,” she whispered.

He gestured at her head, expression sarcastic. “Yeah, super well.”

Dustin, not getting that they were talking, interrupted their conversation by grabbing Lucas’s shoulder. “Come on, Lucas, our moms are going to kill us if we’re not home by ten.”

Lucas grinned at Max before unlocking the front door and pulling it open. “See you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow.”

Lucas and Dustin both waved as they retreated out the front of the Wheeler house, leaving Max with Eleven, Mike, and Will. She turned around, careful not to spin her head too quickly.

“Eleven can stay with Will and I in my room so you get the whole basement,” Mike offered, like he was doing Max a favor.

She snorted. “Yeah, not sure your mom is going to go for that.”

El giggled. “Yeah, maybe not, Mike.”

“Okay, god, just trying to be nice.”

Max exchanged a look with El. “Oh, of course,” she said innocently to Mike. “Don’t worry, El and I will be fine in the basement.”

Though she had taken a long nap less than an hour previously, Max was ready to go back to bed. Her eyelids felt heavy and it took conscious effort to not drag her feet along the floor on the way to the basement. She didn’t even think about the fact that it wasn’t even yet ten until she had changed into pajamas and was about to lie down on the basement sofa.

“You don’t have to go to bed yet, El,” she said. “It’s super early.”

“It’s okay,” El responded. Max noticed that she was holding something; she hadn’t seen it before because El was partially hidden in the pillow fort. “I’ll read for a while.”

It was a Wonder Woman comic. Max recognized it as one of the ones she’d given El. El also had a flashlight. “Okay. Goodnight, El.”

“Goodnight, Max.”

The only light in the basement came from El’s flashlight. Max turned her body so that she couldn’t see it. When she’d gone to sleep before, there had been sunlight coming in through the glass on the basement side door. Now it was all dark.

The darkness was where Max’s thoughts always took over. She waited to think of Billy and the things she was scared of, but she only thought of him to think about how she was not thinking of him. Most of her felt at peace in a strange way that she hadn’t experienced before. Or, if she had, not in a long time. She felt safe.

The rest of her was the dark part, but it wasn’t fixated on Billy or her usual concerns. It was fixated on her mother. She reminded herself that it was possible her mother was at home, that she hadn’t called because she didn’t know anything had happened. Mrs. Wheeler must have called her, and Joyce probably had, too. But maybe she hadn’t been home then and she was now.

Max wasn’t going to dwell, she was going to sleep. Today, for the first time in maybe ever, she truly believed that her mind might go back to normal. Her mother wasn’t going to ruin that.

* * *

**July 27, 1986**

Max’s first thought when she woke up–after remembering where she was and why she was there–was that it was probably early, because everything was so quiet. Her second thought was of her mother and if she had called.

It was not early. It was after twelve. Eleven’s pillow fort was vacant, her Wonder Woman comic book and flashlight on the floor outside it. Max scanned the basement, trying to gather where everyone was. Her head no longer hurt, though the balloon-like sensation remained. She stood up, and from this increased height immediately saw a piece of paper on the coffee table directly in front of where her head had been: a note. She crouched down so that she could read it.

_We went to the video store to get movies. We’ll be back by 12:45!_

It was in Lucas’s handwriting. She glanced back at the clock. It was 12:07 currently. They must have left recently.

At least it gave her time to figure out if anyone had heard from her mother. She abandoned the note on the coffee table and hurried to the stairs, climbing them two at a time. It was Sunday, so her mother was probably working lunch at Enzo’s right now. But she could have called before. Or, if she hadn’t, Max could call Enzo’s and ask.

Mrs. Wheeler wasn’t in the living room, but she was in the kitchen. “Good to see you’re up,” she said. “Your friends went to the video store but they should be back soon.”

“Yeah, I know,” Max said. “They left a note. I just wanted to ask if you heard from my mom yet?”

Mrs. Wheeler did not instantly smile and nod, so the answer was obviously still no. Max noticed that there was slight concern in her face, too. So now it wasn’t just Max who thought something was wrong. “I tried calling the house this morning, but there was no answer. Do you have any idea where she might be?”

“She’s working right now,” Max responded, like this might explain her mother’s absence that morning, too. It didn’t. Enzo’s wasn’t even open in the morning. “Can I call her work?”

“Yeah, of course. Do you know the number?”

Oh, that was the catch. Susan had written out both her work numbers and left them at Max’s house in case she ever needed to call, but Max had never called either of them and didn’t remember a single digit from either phone number. “It’s Enzo’s, the restaurant. It’s probably in the phone book.”

“The phone books are over there,” Mrs. Wheeler pointed across the kitchen to a shelf where Max spotted at least eight phone books. Her mother had two of them, the 1985 and 1986 versions, but the Wheelers had far more. Max headed over to the shelf and pulled out the 1986 phone book, paging through it until she found the businesses section. Under restaurants, Enzo’s was one of the first, as there weren’t exactly a plethora of restaurants in Hawkins.

Normally, Max would have just committed the phone number to memory and gone to the phone, but the effort to recall the number even seconds after reading it put a giant strain on her mind. There was a pad of paper and a pencil on the top of the shelf, so she scribbled the number down and took the paper with her to the kitchen phone.

She expected Mrs. Wheeler to stay in the kitchen, having heard from Mike how bad she was at respecting people’s telephone privacy. But to Max’s surprise, she moved to leave the kitchen. Before she did, she said, “If you want to take a shower or anything, you can use the bathroom upstairs across from Nancy’s room.”

Max thanked her and waited for her to leave, then lifted the phone and carefully dialed the number she’d written down. The phone rang only twice before a man’s voice answered, saying, “Hello, Enzo’s restaurant in Hawkins, this is Dennis speaking.”

It was weird that this random man on the other end of the phone had probably had full conversations with her mother. “Hi,” Max said, “is Susan Hargrove there?”

“Susan Hargrove…oh, no, she didn’t come in today. Do you know her? She was scheduled to work.”

Max swallowed. Her mother was not one to skip work. As in, she didn’t think her mother had ever skipped work before. “Sorry, I’m her daughter, but I don’t know where she is. Sorry. Bye.”

She hung up. The piece of paper with the telephone number fell to the floor. It had been over twenty-four hours since she’d heard from her mother. Something was wrong.

Max moved numbly from the kitchen and towards the stairs. Her friends would be back soon. For now, it made sense to take a shower.

In the bathroom, she turned the shower knob so that the water was practically boiling. It was stuffy in the whole house, a product of how hot it was outside, but she didn’t make the water any colder even when it nearly burned her skin. Like yesterday, it was difficult to think coherently. She didn’t know how concerned she was supposed to be. It had only been twenty-four hours, after all. Her mother could have gone to Indianapolis to be with Lonnie. She could have stayed out late and overslept and not heard Mrs. Wheeler’s phone call.

She could have driven a long ways in twenty-four hours.

Max didn’t know why she kept thinking that. Her mother had never given her any indication that she wanted to go somewhere else. She hadn’t even talked about moving back to California. Max knew that Susan would probably be happier if she didn’t have to worry about Max, but that was totally different from actually leaving her. No matter how horribly Max spoke to her mother, no matter how many days passed where they barely spoke at all, Max had never doubted that her mother would always be there in some form. Had she been stupid?

She had been stupid a lot lately.

Max’s skin was red by the time she turned off the shower. She didn’t have any other clothes with her, so she changed back into the same ones she’d worn yesterday. It probably somewhat defeated the purpose of showering, but at least she felt cooler now that her hair was wet and she was no longer under the stream of boiling water.

After hanging her towel up to dry, Max opened the bathroom door and exited the bathroom. Focusing on turning off the light as she left, she accidentally bumped into Nancy, who was leaving her bedroom across the hall.

“Sorry,” Max said automatically.

“It’s okay,” Nancy responded. It also sounded automatic. “Um, are you okay?”

Max didn’t think Nancy meant because they’d bumped into each other. “Yeah, really living it up.”

Nancy laughed like she didn’t know if she was supposed to or not. Max, guessing that neither of them wanted to chat about it, continued down the hall and then down the stairs. Nancy came down behind her, but far enough that Max knew she was right in her guess.

Back in the basement, the clock said 12:41. Max’s friends were supposed to be back soon. She killed time by reading the Wonder Woman comic book El had been reading last night, though she had read it herself at least five times. She hadn’t quite reached the end when the basement side door swung open and her friends burst into the basement.

“We got, like, five movies!” Dustin exclaimed, his arms loaded with them. She only saw four, so he was embellishing, but four was a lot anyway. “And we told Steve you’re alive.”

“I think Steve knows I’m alive,” Max said, getting up. “But we can’t watch the movies right now. I need to go home first.”

“What?” Lucas said, confused.

“Nobody has heard from my mom in ages,” Max said, controlling her voice like this wasn’t as big a deal to her as it was. “I want to see if she’s there or something.”

“Can’t you call?”

“She’s not answering. I have to go.”

Dustin frowned, setting the movies down one by one on the coffee table. “I didn’t think you were supposed to go off alone.”

“She’s _not_ ,” Mike said.

“Okay, will you guys chill?” Max was aware of how ironic it was that she was telling them to chill when her anxiety was through the roof, but they didn’t need to know that. “You can come with me.”

“It’s so hot out there,” Dustin complained. “It’s, like, eighty-five. We were just biking.”

“Well, you’re going to do more biking,” Max said firmly. She wasn’t going to be swayed. “You guys are lucky I even waited for you.”

Five minutes later, they were biking out of the cul-de-sac, Max riding on the back of Lucas’s bike. He had asked her three times if the bike jostling made her sick, and she had lied all three times that it didn’t. In reality, she already thought she might throw up and they weren’t even close to her house. She would have to manage.

She was so busy trying not to throw up that the bike ride passed faster than she thought it would. She zoned out until they were coming up her street, and then she almost forgot about being sick in her efforts to locate her mother’s car.

It was not there.

“She’s not here.”

Max stood on the grass of her front lawn, next to where Lucas and the others had dumped their bikes. She’d finished scanning up and down the street at least five times, and now was dizzy for a reason other than the bike ride.

“Are you sure she didn’t park in the garage?” Will suggested. All of her friends had the same looks on their faces, like they didn’t get how bad this was but they got that it was, at some level, bad.

“She never parks in the garage,” Max said distantly. She didn’t know why she wasn’t more disappointed. She had come all the way over here hoping to find her mother, but now that she hadn’t, it was like she’d known all along with absolute certainty she wouldn’t be here.

Max turned around and marched up to the porch, fishing in her shorts pocket for her house keys. They had been in there yesterday, and fortunately they were still there. Her friends, delayed in their recognition that she was going inside, scrambled up to the porch as she twisted the key in the lock and pushed the front door open.

“MOM!” She shouted, shutting the door behind El, who was the last one to enter the house. “IT’S MAX! ARE YOU HERE!”

She felt like an idiot, shouting into an empty house.

As she’d expected, there was no response. She failed again to be disappointed.

“Maybe there’s, like, evidence to where she went,” Lucas said, staring into the house. “Like on TV, with missing person cases.”

“She’s not a missing person, she’s just not here,” Mike said, but he also was staring into the house like there would be some large sign spelling out exactly where she’d gone.

“I hope she’s not a missing person,” Max said darkly. “Let’s search. What do we have to lose?” Besides the small remaining hope she had that her mother had not abandoned her.

Her friends fanned out through the house. They concentrated mainly on the living room and kitchen, but Max moved down the hall to her mother’s bedroom. She hadn’t been in there since she and Eleven had stolen the box of photos of Billy. It looked exactly the same as it had that night except that it wasn’t dark. The curtains on the window were drawn, but light still filtered through them, eliminating the need for Max to turn on the actual light.

The bed was made, but that didn’t mean anything. Susan made her bed every day. Max walked over to the dresser. Unlike her own dresser, it was relatively clear. There was a jar of coins and a framed photo. Max pulled the photo forward, holding it so that it caught the light coming through the curtains. It was a photo of her and her mother together. She had no memory of it being taken, but she looked extremely young. She didn’t know her mother even kept photos of their lives before everything. Before Neil. That picture must have been taken when her mother was still married to her dad, which was a time Susan rarely talked about.

Maybe she wanted to go back to it, too. Or maybe she just wanted to go back to when Max was small and nice and didn’t scream at her for choosing the wrong men to date. Max pushed the photo to the back of the dresser.

“I FOUND SOMETHING!” Mike’s voice filled the house, loud enough to reach Max in her mother’s bedroom. She held her gaze over the photo for one more second, then spun around and left the bedroom.

Mike was in the kitchen, holding a piece of paper. Dustin stood next to him, reading over his shoulder. As Max approached them, Dustin grabbed the paper from Mike, muttering something in his ear that looked a lot like “shit.”

“Uh, it’s probably nothing,” Mike said, looking mildly horrified now. He was a terrible liar.

Max’s heart skipped a beat. Why would her mother have left a note if she didn’t even know Max was coming back? She would only do that if she wasn’t planning on being there when Max did come back. Which wasn’t supposed to be for two more days.

“Show me.” She continued walking towards Mike and Dustin, hand outstretched for the note. She saw Lucas out of the corner of her eye, watching her.

Dustin thrust the paper towards her like it was contraband or something. She rotated it so that the words weren’t upside down. It was a note, but unlike the one her friends had left her when they went to the video store, the words “be back” were written nowhere on it.

_Max, I love you more than anyone. I’m so sorry for ruining your life. I’m not perfect, either. You’re so lucky to have people who care about you even when I’m not there for you. Love, Mom._

“Holy shit.” Lucas had read it, too. Will and Eleven stood on the other side of her, so they probably all had.

Max felt like she’d been hypnotized. Her head rotated to face Lucas at the sound of his voice.

“I don’t get it,” she said. She struggled to hold onto the note. It was like it had been covered in axel grease. She crumpled it.

“What?” Lucas’s eyes were wide with horror, much like Mike’s and Dustin’s had been.

“She didn’t take her stuff with her,” Max said. “Everything is here. She only took her car. She needs her other stuff.”

“What?” Lucas said again. She didn’t know why he didn’t understand.

“She has over fifty dollars in coins. She could use that. I don’t get why she left it.”

This was real. She was supposed to be disappointed right now, now that it was confirmed, now that it was real. Why was she still not disappointed? She felt nothing.

“Where did she go?” Eleven said, the sound of her voice crackly in Max’s ear. “She loves you, Max.”

Max threw the crumpled note on the floor. Her arms moved angrily, but she didn’t feel angry. “She’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“Gone.” Not how El meant it, but didn’t it all mean the same thing? Never coming back. Billy’s mother had never come back. But Billy’s mother had run from Neil. There was no Neil. There was only Max and her mother. Was her mother running from Max? _I love you more than anyone_.

“Let’s go back to your house,” Max said, looking at Mike. He looked like he was more in shock than she was. All of her friends did. “Let me just get some clothes first.”

She left her friends in the kitchen, all looking back and forth between each other like their own mothers had driven off and left them. Like any of their mothers would ever do that. In her room, Max punched the wall, but all it did was send a dull pain through her fist. She still wasn’t angry. She didn’t know why she was trying to be.

Her suitcase that she’d packed to take to Will’s house was still fully packed on her floor. She unzipped it and grabbed a few shirts and pairs of shorts out of it at random, stuffing them into her backpack. She zipped the backpack shut and hoisted it onto her back before leaving her room. She’d been in there less than a minute.

Her friends whispered the whole way out of the house, but she ignored them. She didn’t care if they talked about her mother. It wasn’t like it was Max’s fault that she was a flake. Her mother was right, anyway; she was lucky to have people who cared about her. If Susan wanted to leave, then that was better than Lucas leaving, or El leaving, or any of her other friends leaving.

Max climbed onto Lucas’s bike behind him, the backpack affecting her balance slightly. She managed to stay on, holding tight to Lucas’s shoulders.

Once her friends couldn’t whisper to each other because they were biking, they stopped communicating entirely. The same thought kept returning to Max’s mind, running over itself frantically but failing to make her feel truly frantic: _I don’t get it. I don’t get it, I don’t get it._

The coins. Why hadn’t she brought the coins?

Max wasn’t really thinking about the coins.

The photo. Why hadn’t she brought the photo?

It was small. It would have fit in her mother’s car. She could have tucked it in with her clothes. But she had she brought any clothes? Max hadn’t checked the drawers, but they were shut so neatly. Not like her mother had opened them to pack anything.

Max noticed that her skin was red. She was getting sunburned. She’d forgotten to wear sunscreen. None of her other friends thought much about it because they weren’t as pale as her, but she always remembered. It was her brain, her stupid concussed brain. Was that why she wasn’t angry? Was her concussion stopping her from getting angry? Could that happen?

Their bikes turned onto the cul-de-sac. Max closed her eyes, nauseated from the turn. When she opened them, they were almost to the Wheelers’ driveway. Lucas pedaled backwards to brake, and they skidded to a halt. Max slid her leg over the back of the seat.

Not even rolling their bikes into the garage, her friends started for the front door of the house. Normally they would just go back to the basement to watch movies or do whatever else. Max didn’t want right now to be different. Of course it had to be. Of course, right after she thought things were going to get better, her mother had to disappear like this.

Where was she going to live? Was she going to have to go back to her dad? When would the government find out her mother had left her? When her mother didn’t show up to parent-teacher conferences?

Lucas grabbed her hand, pulling her to the front door, where Mike was already knocking for them to be let in.

“Maybe we shouldn’t tell Mike’s mom yet,” Max said. “Maybe she just needed a break. I know you’re probably, like, _Jesus Max is in denial_ , or whatever, but I don’t get why she didn’t take anything with her.”

Lucas squeezed her hand tighter.

Mrs. Wheeler opened the front door. She was crying. Why was she crying? There was no way she knew that Max’s mother was gone. Had something else happened?

Max filed after her friends into the Wheelers’ house. “What’s wrong?” She asked Mrs. Wheeler, wondering why Mike wasn’t asking his own mother why she was crying.

“Oh, honey.”

So it was about her mother. How did Mrs. Wheeler know?

Max looked at Eleven, who held onto Mike’s arm, a strange sympathy written on her face. _Gone_. That’s what El had said. Max shifted her eyes to Lucas, who was still squeezing her hand. He’d kept asking her _What?_ like he didn’t get why her mother would take any of that stuff with her.

Mrs. Wheeler leaned forward, resting a hand on Max’s shoulder. “Max, I just got a call…”

Oh.

 _Gone_.

Then, Max knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I HAVE BEEN PLANNING THIS FOR LIKE A LONG TIME AND I FEEL LIKE NOBODY WOULD HAVE GUESSED BECAUSE MAYBE I AM JUST TERRIBLE OR SOMETHING
> 
> I don't even know how clear it is what happened but I assume it's clear??? Idk. I know this is incredibly sad, I have had this in my plan for so long that it's not surprising to me obviously but if you were surprised like I'm sorry I know this story is pretty dark I swear Max will be okay.


	16. After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: a lot of talk of suicide in this chapter.

Susan had driven out of Hawkins, stopped at a motel along the interstate on the way to Indianapolis, and overdosed on sleeping pills prescribed to her by the doctor. Max didn’t even know when her mother went to the doctor to get them prescribed. The maid had gone inside and found her in the motel room, looking however you looked when you took too many sleeping pills.

Now, Max was in the backseat of Mrs. Wheeler’s car, on the way to some hospital in between Hawkins and Indianapolis. She stared out the window, blocking the rest of the car entirely out of her vision. Lucas was next to her in the middle, and she felt him trying and failing not to look at her.

Her friends had cried. It was weird. They had heard Mrs. Wheeler explain to Max about her mother and the sleeping pills, and they had cried. Mrs. Wheeler had cried. Everyone had looked at her and Lucas had put his arm around her and Mrs. Wheeler had told her it was going to be okay when Max knew she didn’t really mean it. Mrs. Wheeler had said they could go to the hospital right now and had gone to get her car keys, and Max’s friends had all stood there and waited for her to cry. She hadn’t.

She had stood at the front of the Wheelers’ house and watched her friends be upset about something that was supposed to upset her. She had understood, deep within herself, that her mother had not tried to run away from her, but she had tried to leave her. Before, back when she _hadn’t_ understood what everyone else had, she had thought that it was all the same, that “gone” meant _gone_ meant never coming back.

It wasn’t all the same, but it was, too. Her mother had tried to leave her. She was supposed to be upset. She was supposed to cry.

She stared out the window of the car and felt the pressure of the headrest against the side of her head. She felt the coolness of the air conditioned air on her skin.

She did not feel how you were supposed to feel when your mother was going to die. Or had died. Or had tried to die.

They’d been driving for around half an hour when Mrs. Wheeler took an exit off the highway. Max saw them turn out the window she was looking through. The only sound in the car was the classical music playing on the radio. Max wished Mrs. Wheeler would play rock or something, but she hadn’t spoken a single word since Mrs. Wheeler had touched her shoulder and told Max that her mother had overdosed. She figured if she spoke only to ask for a change of music, she would look sort of heartless.

Max was pretty sure that Mike was in the front seat, Dustin was on the other side of Lucas, and Eleven and Will were in the backseat, but her lack of total certainty evidenced just how out of it she was. She was getting carsick from facing constantly sideways.

They pulled into a hospital parking lot. This one was bigger than the one in Hawkins, which Max had been to yesterday. There were a number of cars, and Mrs. Wheeler had to drive around looking for a spot. When she secured one, she turned the engine off and Max had to stop staring out the window.

Mrs. Wheeler got out of the car. Max heard doors opening throughout the car; her friends were also getting out. She unfastened her seatbelt, bumping Lucas who was doing the same. He made eye contact with her and she looked away.

Lucas could have got out on the other side, where Dustin did. Instead, he stayed there, waiting for her to open her door. She knew she was being slower than everyone else, but she thought it was fair seeing as she had a concussion. She pushed open the door and dropped her feet onto the asphalt of the parking lot. Lucas jumped out after her, shutting the car door behind him.

“They said she’d in the East Wing,” Mrs. Wheeler said. She had talked like this on the way to the car, too, like she was leading some kind of field trip. Max noticed how her voice kind of shook, though.

Max’s friends walked behind Mrs. Wheeler but ahead of Max and Lucas on their way into the hospital. Max was practically dragging her feet, the distance between her and her other friends increasing, but Lucas stayed back with her as if he didn’t have to make a conscious effort to match her snail’s pace.

She didn’t know if he was going to try to talk to her or not, but she focused her gaze forward so she wouldn’t look stupid either way. Her friends hadn’t said much before, which was a response that made sense to her. She didn’t know what she would say in this situation, either. There were not words for something like this.

“Max,” Lucas began, voice shaking even more than Mrs. Wheeler’s, “your mom said she loves you. And she does.” _Did_. Or does. Max didn’t know yet.

Max turned her head slightly to show that she was listening, but didn’t respond with words.

“She was going through a lot, right? Your stepdad, he was her husband and stuff. She was going through a lot.”

Max didn’t know if this was the right thing for him to say. She felt like she was meant to evaluate it on its correctness and react based on how right of a thing it was to say, but she’d never read a book on what to do when your friends mother tried to kill themselves. She was so focused on whether or not it was the right thing for him to say that she didn’t think about what he was actually saying for a moment. When she did, it hit her like a light punch in the stomach.

“She was just going through what I put her through,” Max said. She didn’t know how her voice was going to sound. Oddly, it was not shaky at all. “She knew how I felt about her.”

“What do you mean?” Lucas’s voice was filled with trepidation.

“She kept screwing up over and over again, and I was mad about it. Obviously. Because she kept fucking things up for both of us. I don’t think she thought she could stop.”

“Oh.”

Max realized she was walking quicker now, her and Lucas’s distance from the others now unchanging. “Everything she was going through, it was a problem for both of us. She was ruining everything. And I told her she was ruining everything. So…”

Max shrugged. Lucas’s breathing was audible.

“God, it’s not your fault, Max.”

If there was a book on what to say in this situation, that phrase was probably in it. It was probably, like the entire first chapter. There were probably red letters that said THIS IS WHAT YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO SAY.

But to Max, it was not the right thing to say. How could Lucas possibly say that it wasn’t her fault? Max was literally the only person in her mother’s life who was constant. If the note was accurate, she was the person her mother loved more than anyone else. How could it not be her fault? It wasn’t like Max was on the ground crying about it, weeping that this was all her fault and she should just die or something. It was just a cold hard fact that this had, in some way, to be her fault. Just like it was a cold hard fact that her mother had written a note and driven to some random motel and tried to die.

“Don’t say that,” Max said flatly. “Don’t say that’s not my fault.”

“This stuff can never be your fault, Max, come on.” Lucas’s tone was pleading. “Would it have been my fault if you…I mean-”

Okay, that most definitely was not in the book.

“I didn’t,” Max responded, cutting him off. “I didn’t do that because I’m not like that. Right there is the difference between me and my mother. So don’t say that either.”

Lucas did not say anything else.

Inside the hospital, Mrs. Wheeler got a map from the front desk and herded them into one of the elevators. They rode up to the fourth floor and got out in a kind of reception area. There was no label anywhere as to what department of the hospital this was. Max wondered if it was for people with mental problems or just for people who were poisoned or something. At least it wasn’t the ICU. Max had once read some harrowing statistics about ICUs.

Mrs. Wheeler went to the front desk to talk to a nurse, while Max’s friends went back to the waiting area to sit down. Max didn’t know which way she was supposed to go. Wasn’t she here to see her mother? She wasn’t here to wait around. She stood awkwardly in between the desk and the waiting area, watching Mrs. Wheeler interact with the nurse. She felt like she wasn’t apart of what was going on, even though it because of her that they were here.

No, it was because of Max’s mother that they were here. Max hadn’t done anything to deserve this. It might be true that this was partially her fault, but if her mother had just told her on the phone that she was going to do this, Max could have stopped her. She could have told her that it was a mistake.

Though the nurse was speaking in a hushed voice to Mrs. Wheeler, she heard her say the words “her daughter” and both she and Mrs. Wheeler glanced at Max. Max stared back at them. She wondered if they were talking about the fact that she wasn’t sobbing. Maybe they would think that mental problems were genetic and her lack of emotion was proof that something was wrong with her. She lowered her eyes.

She was so focused on ignoring whatever it was that the nurse and Mrs. Wheeler were saying about her that she was startled by Mrs. Wheeler touching her arm. She pulled it away instinctively. Unlike Max’s own mother, Mrs. Wheeler wasn’t much taller than Max, and Max could see the stress on her face quite clearly.

There was no reason to sugarcoat it. Max took a step back so there was more distance between her and Mrs. Wheeler and asked, “Is she alive?”

“Oh, well-”

 _Well?_ That wasn’t a yes. Why was Max’s stomach flip-flopping now? She wasn’t upset. She was handling this. She wasn’t upset. Well?

“Is she dead?”

“Max-”

“Is she dead?”

“No, Max, no. She’s not dead. The nurse said that they…they pumped her stomach, and she’s resting now. She’s not dead.”

Not dead. Not dead. Not gone.

Max swiveled her eyes to the nurse at the desk. She was observing this interaction. She looked worried, just like Mrs. Wheeler did.

But her mother wasn’t dead. Why were they worried? Max felt like something was waking up inside her, a kind of guarded relief that was mixed with nervous terror. The terror might be left over from before, before Mrs. Wheeler said that she wasn’t dead. But why were they worried?

Max pushed past Mrs. Wheeler, going directly to the nurse. “Is she going to die?” She demanded. She said the words without feeling, but heard them differently in her head. She needed to know.

“Well, sweetie, we can’t guarantee anything, your mother’s body has undergone a lot of-”

“I’m fifteen,” Max snapped. “Just tell me, Jesus.”

“Ah, okay,” the nurse’s eyebrows were knitted together. She was judging Max, but the opinion of a random nurse at a hospital Max would probably never go to again hardly mattered. “We don’t think she is going to die, no. Her stomach was pumped and she is in stable condition.”

Stable condition was a good thing. Why were they worried? “So she’s not going to die?”

Just like Mrs. Wheeler, the nurse attempted to touch Max. Why did everyone keep doing that? “Your mother tried to commit suicide,” she said. “When someone does that to themselves, we have to follow through and make sure they won’t try again. There may be a long road ahead.”

She said it like Max didn’t already know that her mother had tried to commit suicide. Like that was supposed to shock her. Max knew why her mother had done what she did. She had read the note. The word _suicide_ though, was so strong. Suicide: when someone wanted to die so badly that they did it to themselves.

Her mother.

Max knew what it was like. She knew what it was like to wonder if being dead was better. But she had chosen not to, hadn’t wanted to. Why had her mother wanted to? Did she feel the same darkness in her head that Max felt? Was it worse?

“Can I see her?” Max didn’t reply to any of the stuff about suicide, about it being a long road. She didn’t even know what “long road” meant. She refused to believe that her mother would do this again. Not after Max saw her. Max would make her not want to anymore. She would convince her. She’d said she loved Max more than anyone, so she must be able to convince her to stay.

The nurse frowned. “Well, she’s resting now. I think it might be better if you waited a while.”

Max shook her head. She’d forgotten she had a concussion for a good ten minutes. “She’s literally my own mom.”

The nurse sighed, like she didn’t approve but wasn’t going to say no. Max couldn’t care less if she approved. “All right, I’ll take you to her room.”

Max glanced back at the chairs where all her friends were sitting. They were all looking at her, but pretended not to be when she turned her head towards them. Only El held her gaze, smiling a small, close-mouth smile of reassurance at Max. It was a weird time to smile, but then it was also the right time to be smiling.

Max had forgotten there was something to be happy about right now. Her mother wasn’t dead.

“Her room is this way, Maxine.” The nurse was gesturing for Max to come with her down a hallway. Max didn’t expect the nurse to know her name, but she’d probably had to figure out what else to call her when she rejected the term _sweetheart_.

The hallway was long and extremely bland. The walls were painted green, but it was a sickly green so light it was almost white. The nurse knocked slightly on one of the doors before opening it, not waiting for a response. It was strange that if there were a response, it would come from Max’s mother. Who was in there.

She held her breath as she stepped inside.

Susan was lying down in a hospital bed, covered in thin white bed coverings. There was a fan on in the room but it was still sweltering, so Max didn’t know why she didn’t have the blankets off. Her skin was so pale it was practically translucent, but she was awake. Apparently “resting” did not mean “sleeping.”

“Max, honey,” Susan said at the sight of Max, her voice kind of like a croak.

Max stared at her.

“I’ll leave you two alone, but press the button on the wall if you need absolutely anything,” the nurse said, kind of to Max and kind of to Susan.

Max continued to stare at her mother. She heard the door shut behind her.

“Max, I didn’t know you’d come so soon, I’m so sorry.” Susan had started crying. Small, weak sobs came in between each word. She reached her hand out towards Max. There was an IV in it. The veins on her hand were prominent, like little ridges coming out of it.

Max stepped forward, her brain sending signals to her legs to move. Her mother was talking, crying, alive. Was she upset? Was there a book that told you how _you_ were supposed to react to this, what _you_ were supposed to say?

“I’m a terrible mother, Max, I know. You were right about me screwing up. About everything. You were right to be mad at me. I just wanted you to be happy for me, I didn’t know that you couldn’t because I was just being a terrible mother.”

Max was at her mother’s bedside now. She grabbed ahold of the table beside the bed to steady herself.

“I thought you would be better off without me. I love you, honey, that’s why I did this. You know it’s true, all I do is hurt you.”

 _Hurt her? This_ hurt. This hurt so badly. She didn’t feel it properly, didn’t feel how much it hurt, but yet she somehow knew that this hurt worse than anything in the entire world had ever hurt.

“How could you do this?” Max said angrily. “Nobody is better off without their mom? What’s wrong with you? You didn’t do this for me!”

Susan’s eyes widened. “Honey, I thought I did, I would never-”

“No, you did this for yourself! You realized you have nobody so you decided you’d rather just die! But whose fault is it that you have nobody?”

She was going to hell. Good lord, she was going to hell. She had to stop. Her voice was becoming louder. She was going to disturb someone. She was going to disturb her mother.

“I just wanted you to stop fucking things up for both of us!” Here was the anger, the anger she should have felt back at her house when she’d found the note and thought her mother had abandoned her. “And then you do this? You’re not supposed to do things all for yourself, but you always do! You dated Neil for yourself, and you dated Lonnie for yourself! Don’t you even care about me?”

Susan’s crying was almost as loud as Max’s yelling. “I love you, I love you so much-”

That was what she’d written on the note. It was bullshit. All of this was bullshit. Lucas was right: it wasn’t Max’s fault. She hadn’t prescribed her mother those pills. She hadn’t forced them down her throat. All she’d done was tell her mother the truth about how selfish she was, judge her for things she deserved to be judged for.

She felt hands on her shoulders, spinning her around. The nurse. “Okay, this conversation is over.”

Max didn’t bother to fight it. It wasn’t really a conversation she was having with her mother, anyway. And though she was pissed, livid even, she was grateful that the nurse was making her leave. She wanted her mother to leave the hospital and be better. She wanted her mother to care about her and mean it, to make good choices.

What if she had just made her mother want to die even more? She was a horrible person.

Back in the reception area, Max’s friends got up from their seats and gathered around her. The nurse was still holding onto Max, so they probably knew something had happened. Well, something more than all the shit that had already happened.

“She’s okay?” El asked quietly. The rest of her friends seemed very nervous to speak, but El’s expression was so genuine it was like she hadn’t even considered that there might be a wrong thing to say.

“I think so,” Max responded. She searched for Mrs. Wheeler. She was standing next to Mike, hiding her nervousness better than Max’s friends but plainly full of just as much of it. “Can we go home now?”

“What?”

“Can we go home now?” Max did not want to be in this hospital anymore. If she went back and saw her mother, she’d just say more things she couldn’t take back. It really would be her fault if her mother tried to do something like this again.

“Well, your mother is here…I think we should stay a little longer, Max.”

Frustrated, Max said, “I want to go home.”

Lucas, who was next to Max, said, “We should stay longer, right? Like, we just got here.”

“Okay? So what? She’s not any of you guys’ moms.”

“I think you’re going to regret it if we leave,” Mike said. This irritated Max. Who was he to tell her what she’d regret? The only thing she regretted was everything she had just said to her mother. And admitting that she regretted that.

“I think you should mind your own business, Mike,” she retorted.

“Max,” Mrs. Wheeler said cautiously, “we’re not going to leave yet. You don’t have to go back and talk to your mother again, but we should wait until there are more news about what’s going to happen.”

What news was there going to be? That her mother was messed up in the head? Big surprise.

“Whatever. You guys can stay here, but I’m not.”

She walked directly forward, shoving herself in between Dustin and Will, and stormed to the elevator. She pressed the down button over and over again like it would make the elevator come faster. She thought her friends might chase after her but they didn’t.

She leaned against the wall of the elevator as it carried her down to the first floor. She hated the feeling of the drop. When the elevator doors opened she hurried out into the main lobby.

She’d been planning to use a pay phone, but she realized she didn’t have any money with her. Maybe there was some other kind of phone there that she could use. She went up to the front desk where Mrs. Wheeler had gotten a map. A sign said that there were no volunteers because it was Sunday, but if she dialed one on the phone she would be directed to an operator who could help her.

The phone? Success: there was a phone, right there on the desk. She hoped it worked like a normal phone.

She was about to dial Steve’s home number when she remembered that he was working. Shit. She didn’t know anyone else who would drive her home. The idea of staying there in the hospital was becoming more and more frightening, like something bad might happen if she stayed. Ever since she’d been escorted out of her mother’s room, she’d felt like some sort of parasite. She had to get out of here. Maybe Steve would come anyway.

She wasn’t sure she knew Family Video’s phone number. She had called the store a handful of times over the past year, but she’d never made a huge effort to memorize the number. She had a good memory, but her brain ached from her struggling to recall the numbers. It was like whenever she attempted to think of something difficult, like a Spanish phrase she’d learned last year, a big block was dropped onto her brain. She grabbed a pencil and paper and stood in front of the desk for a solid two minutes before she thought she might have the number.

She half expected some random person to answer the phone when it stopped ringing, but a familiar voice came over the line: “Family Video in Hawkins, this is Robin.”

“Robin! Can I talk to Steve?”

“Max? Why does it say you’re calling from a different area code?”

“Because I am. Can I talk to Steve?” Her friends were only going to give her space for so long.

“Uh, yeah.”

Max waited impatiently, elbow resting on the top of the desk next to the phone. Despite all of the cars in the parking lot, the front lobby was fairly empty. Still, someone might come along at some point and ask to use the phone.

“Max?” It was Steve.

“Hi! I know you’re working.” She said each word choppily. She thought she was anxious about her friends coming to find her, but in reality they were only at the back of her mind. She kept seeing her mother’s face, pale and covered with tears that she had been responsible for.

“Yeah, that’s why I’m at work. This isn’t really like a place of fun for me. Wait, are you okay?” It was a fair question; it had been only yesterday that she’d driven a car into a tree.

“Well…” God, was she really going to ask him to leave work for her? She’d just implied her mother was selfish. She was a hypocrite. “Something happened to my mom.”

“Your mom? You mean, like, how you couldn’t find her?”

“Yeah. I shouldn’t ask you this, I know you’re busy, but-”

“Hey, just tell me. Is she still missing?” Of course he was worried before he even knew.

She didn’t know how to tell him. Not him, specifically, she just didn’t know how to say it. Everyone else had said it, had talked about the sleeping pills and the word _suicide_. But Max didn’t think she could make that word come out of her mouth. “I’m just at a hospital now. For my mom. And I want to go home, but everyone is full of shit and saying I have to stay.”

Maybe he would offer to come get her and she wouldn’t have to ask. She’d still be selfish to accept, but she’d feel less bad about it. “Jesus, kid, what happened to your mom?”

Why did he have to ask her that? “She just…”

“Who are you talking to?”

Lucas was in front of her, the rest of her friends right behind him.

“One second, Steve,” she said into the phone, heart racing. They were going to make her stay.

“Steve?” Dustin pushed past Lucas and grabbed the phone from her.

“What the hell?” She exclaimed, trying to snatch it back. He slapped her hand away.

“Steve, don’t come pick her up…oh, well, she was going to ask you…her mom’s okay…um, I’ll tell you later…okay…yeah, of course…bye.”

Dustin hung up the phone. For some reason, this action above all things made her blood boil. “What is wrong with you?” She snapped at Dustin, kicking her foot into the desk in frustration.

“Max, you can’t just leave,” Lucas said. “Your mom’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay.”

Okay. Whatever Max’s mother was, she wasn’t okay.

“She’s not okay! She wanted to…she did all of this! Do you think she was more miserable than _Billy?_ She never went through anything close to what he went through! He didn’t try to kill himself! He never would’ve done that!”

“Max-”

“What, do you think he would have done that?”

“No,” El said. “He wouldn’t.”

El knew. El had seen Billy’s life. Why was she thinking about Billy? When had she started thinking about Billy? What did this have to do with Billy?

“He wouldn’t! And I wouldn’t! You guys thought I would, but I wouldn’t. I would never do this. And she’s the one who caused everything. She was the problem. And she knew she was the problem because I told her she was, and then what? She just tries to leave?”

She knew she was the problem. And then she tried to leave.

That’s what Susan had been saying to Max. In the hospital room, in the note, on the phone.

“Max, I promise, it’s not going to be like this forever,” Lucas said.

Max closed her eyes. The room was spinning.  
“Max?” It was El who said that.

“I’m so stupid,” Max said softly, more to herself than to her friends. “I’m yelling at you guys when my mom is up there.”

“Not stupid,” El responded fiercely. “You’re not.”

Max opened her eyes. “Yes. I am.”

She whirled around, already moving. Her mother was up there, in that bed. Billy hadn’t ever been in a hospital bed. He’d just been gone. There was no saving him. Her mother was not gone. She’d cried over Billy, wanted him to come back so badly. Why hadn’t she done the same for her mother? Why hadn’t she cried?

She was in front of the elevator. She pressed the up button once. It lit up. She didn’t press it again.

“Max, wait, calm down.” She’d anticipated that her friends would follow after her, but not that they’d crowd around her, preventing her from getting on the elevator.

“I thought you wanted me to go back up there,” she said shortly. Seriously, they had come all the down here just to tell her she shouldn’t leave. Now they were stopping her from going back?

“Yeah, but not because you’re stupid,” Will said. “Your mom…she shouldn’t have done what she did.”

Max was surprised that he was agreeing with her. She thought all of her friends were on the side of _she’s been through a lot_.

“I don’t know what I’d do if my mom did that,” Dustin said, like he agreed with Will. “But your mom, she’s okay.”

Lucas nodded. “She’s alive, Max. And I know you’re glad she is.”

Of course Max was glad she was alive. Was that not clear?

“Your mom, she loves you,” El said.

Max’s mother had said that herself. She’d been crying so hard. _I love you so much_. Max had yelled at her. She’d been so angry.

She wasn’t angry now. Her heart was beating at a normal rate. She didn’t know she was capable of sounding as helpless as she did when she spoke. “What am I going to do?”

“You don’t have to fix this,” Lucas answered, as if that even was an answer. It wasn’t. Of course she had to fix it. It had to be fixed. Who else was going to fix it?

“Are we going to just go back home and pretend it never happened?” Max’s voice was breaking, slowly. She’d held it steady when all of her friends’ voices were shaking, held herself together when all of them were crying. They’d learned that her mother was okay and then they’d seemed okay. But Max had never even fully processed that her mother might be dead in the first place. “I thought things were going to change.”

Even with her mind fuzzy, she didn’t miss the way her friends all exchanged looks with each other.

“I don’t think you’re going to go back home, Max,” Will said. “You can’t.”

It took her a second to get it. Why wouldn’t she go back home? Her mother was alive. She’d be discharged. She remembered what the nurse had said about it being a long road ahead.

Back when Neil was arrested, her biggest fear had been being separated from her mother. She didn’t really know why. It wasn’t like her mother had had a better relationship then than they did now. She’d been terrified that they were going to send her to California, away from Hawkins.

She had to know. “Am I going to go back to California or some bullshit?” She asked. “Did someone say that?”

But to her relief, her friends shook their heads. “Things are going to get better, Max, not worse,” Lucas said.

She sighed. So they didn’t actually know for sure. “You guys don’t know that.”

Mike made direct eye contact with her. “We promise.”

She believed it.

* * *

Max’s back was stiff from laying on the couch in the hospital reception. _Couch_ was a generous word, really; it was more of a glorified bench. She must have fallen asleep at some point anyway, because the lighting had changed and it wasn’t as hot in there anymore.

She blinked her eyes a few times and sat up, disoriented. She was surprised to see Steve sitting a few chairs down from her, in between Dustin and Mike. Both Dustin and Mike had dozed off, heads leaned back into the wall, but Steve caught her looking at him.

“Hey,” he said. “I came when my shift ended.”

“What time is it?” A couple of hours must have passed.

“Uh, like six.”

She swung her legs around so she was sitting normally on the bench. “Did someone tell you?”

Steve nodded. “Yeah. I’m sorry, kid.”

Max shrugged. She still hadn’t cried, but she felt like she was slightly less dead inside than before. There was real relief in her that her mother was alive. Of course, it was coupled with anxiety about what was going to happen after this, but she was trying to believe that if anything, life might get better at some point. Not soon, but maybe in a while. Will had told her that sometimes really bad things made good things happen. She knew he was just trying to make her feel better, but that sentiment above almost anything else anyone had said to her had worked.

“I just want to see her,” she told Steve honestly. She had come back up the elevator and begged to see her mother, but the nurse had said that her mother was upset by her visit with Max and Max needed to wait. If multiple hours had really passed, maybe Max could see her now.

“Can’t you?” Steve looked over at the desk where the nurse had been. A different nurse was there now. They must have changed shifts.  
“I don’t know,” Max said.

Knowing she might overthink if she thought about it at all, she got up from where she was sitting and walked boldly up to the nurse. The nurse looked up, no look of recognition on her face. Obviously.

“Excuse me, my mom is here,” Max said. “I’ve been waiting to see her. Can I?”

“What’s your mother’s name?”

“Susan Hargrove.”

The nurse flipped through some kind of binder and frowned. “It says here you had some kind of outburst when visiting her, and not to let you go back until your mother calmed down.”

Max felt herself flush slightly. The feeling of being a parasite returned. “Hasn’t she? I really want to see her.”

The nurse studied Max for a moment, like she could assess whether or not it was a good idea just by looking at her. “I’ll take you there, but if she doesn’t want to see you, I can’t let you in.”

Max hoped her mother wanted to see her.

The nurse started to lead Max back down the hall when Max heard footsteps behind them. Lucas, who had also been trying to sleep, had gotten up.

“Do you want us to go with you?” He asked her.

She actually considered it. Maybe her friends would stop her from saying something wrong. But ultimately, it was up to her to say what she meant to say.

She shook her head. “I’ll be okay.”

“Okay.”

He smiled encouragingly, and she smiled back before continuing down the hall with the nurse.

Max had to wait outside her mother’s room while the nurse went in to verify that it was okay for Max to come in. Max couldn’t hear anything so she couldn’t help but imagine the worst. Fortunately, the nurse came back out and held the door open for Max to enter the room.

“Fifteen minutes,” she said. Max wondered if this guideline was set by the nurse or if Susan had said she only wanted to see Max for fifteen minutes.

Susan was sitting up in bed this time, resting back against the headboard. Her face was slightly red, like she’d been doing a lot of crying.

“Mom,” Max said, remembering that her mother had spoken first last time. She didn’t really know what to say next. Her mother had said she was sorry. It seemed like a good thing to start with. “I’m sorry.”

Susan wiped at her eyes. “You were right,” she responded. “You were right.”

But Max didn’t care anymore if she was right. It wasn’t about that. “No, Mom. I love you.”

She thought she wasn’t going to cry. She hadn’t cried before. But as the words left her mouth, she felt the tears coming.

“Max, honey, I love you, too.”

The tears fell.

 _I love you more than anyone._ The note. _I love you so much._

“Do you promise?”

Her mother didn’t know what promise meant. She wasn’t in their Party. She didn’t have friends like that.

“Max, I promise. I love you more than anything.”

Maybe she did know what promise meant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter I ended a little earlier than planned because I ran out of time to write. I think I hit the main points here though which are that SUSAN IS NOT DEAD (I feel like everyone thought she legit died in the last chapter because I made it very unclear but she is okay) and we are kinda heading into the resolution of this story now.
> 
> I really have no idea how you guys are reacting to this story anymore because like the ending is something I planned so much but like it's new to other people idek. I was a bit rushed writing parts of this so I hope that wasn't obvious!


	17. The Byers'

**July 30, 1986**

“What about this?” Will asked, holding up a deck of cards.

Max squinted at it, trying to remember when she’d even last seen the deck. “Do you guys even know how to play cards?”

“Everyone can play Old Maid,” Dustin said sarcastically.

“Yeah, I meant more like poker.”

Will tossed it to Max, who was standing above her suitcase. “Bring it. You can teach us.”

Max’s friends were all crowded in her small bedroom, helping her pack. She was mainly done now, and her friends had resorted to going through her personal belongings under the guise of “helping her decide what to bring.” She didn’t really mind, as long as they didn’t go under the bed. She’d been hyper aware of the presence of the box of photos of Billy all day, ever since her room had seemingly gone under siege.

Things had felt normal all day between her and her friends. They’d joked around and hung out like normal, if it were normal for them to hangout at her house, which it wasn’t. They talked freely about Max going to live with the Byers, like it wasn’t totally weird. Max appreciated how they were acting, but there was nothing that was going to make her feel normal inside. She was leaving, and she didn’t know for how long. It was better than being shipped off to California, but she was still leaving Hawkins. And her mother, who had just gotten back from the hospital two days ago.

There was a knock on the wall outside Max’s bedroom door. The door itself wasn’t shut all the way, because it was almost ninety degrees outside and they’d probably suffocate if it were, so Joyce had knocked on the wall and now stood in the doorway.

“Are you ready?” She asked, looking into the room in general but obviously talking to Max.

Max glanced at her suitcase, which was open but stuffed to the brim. “Yeah.” She quickly pulled the top down over her stuff and started to zip it shut. “Be there in a minute.”

“Okay.”

Max used her full weight to lift the suitcase to a standing position. A lot of the clothes in there had been leftover from when she’d packed to go stay with the Byers with her friends, but it was much heavier now. She rolled it along the carpet towards the entrance to her room. El moved behind it and pushed it with her hands. It didn’t really help, but Max didn’t tell her that it didn’t.

Joyce and Susan were both in the kitchen, sitting at the dining table. Susan had an almost full mug of coffee in front of her, even though it was after three in the afternoon. She smiled at Max and her friends when they entered the kitchen.

“Looks like you’re all ready to go,” Susan said in a falsely bright voice, looking at Max’s suitcase. Well, the brightness wasn’t necessarily false, but Max assumed it was. How could she be happy that Max was leaving?

Joyce got up from the table and said, “Let’s take Max’s suitcase to the car and let her and her mother talk for a bit.” Apparently she was not talking to Max.

Max stood awkwardly in front of the dining table while her friends followed Joyce towards the front door, her pulling Max’s suitcase. She knew she was going to have to say goodbye to her mother, but she still hadn’t figured out how it was going to go. She knew this move was supposed to help both of them, to make things better, but she couldn’t ignore her worry that something terrible would happen without her there.

“Are you gonna be okay alone?” Max asked. She didn’t know if it was the right thing to say, but she knew that she wanted to hear the answer regardless.

Susan sighed, then nodded. She gestured at the chair Joyce had been sitting in, like she wanted Max to sit down. She obliged.

“You shouldn’t worry about me, honey,” she said. It was something that mothers said, and most children might totally ignore it because of this, but Max’s mother wasn’t always saying things that other mothers said. “It’s not your job to do that.”

It was always Max’s job to worry, or so it seemed. She was still getting used to the idea that things were meant to be changing. “I just want you to be okay,” she said. “I know you told Joyce you thought it was a good idea for me to go, but if you think you’d be better if I stayed-”

“No, Max. No.” Susan was still smiling. It was more of a resigned smile than a happy smile, but it did have a slight calming effect on Max. “Joyce and I talked about what you did with Neil’s car. I know there’s a lot going on in your head, too.”

The car crash. It had been such a significant thing in Max’s life for about a day, and then it had become so insignificant. That was what happened when something far worse occurred, as was Max’s mother’s overdose. Max was still recovering from her concussion, but everything to do with the car crash including the concussion seemed so small in comparison to what Max’s mother faced.

“I’m okay, Mom,” Max said reassuringly. She hadn’t thought very much about whether or not she was okay, truthfully. Joyce had talked to her a little bit about how she needed help, not just her mother, and she had agreed because she knew she was supposed to agree. But all she had been thinking about was her mother.

Susan shook her head. “Maybe not. I know I’m not.” Seeing Max freeze slightly, she added, “Not right now, not yet. But I’m going to be. Joyce told me I need to see a doctor. Not like the ones at the hospital, but a different kind. You know, for your mind.”

“Yeah, a psychiatrist, I know what that is.”

Susan tilted her at Max thoughtfully. “Of course you do. You’re getting to be smarter than I am.”

“Haven’t I always been?” Max joked. She didn’t know if her mother would laugh or be offended, but fortunately she laughed.

“You’re right. Look, honey, I understand how scared you are for me. But I promise you that I won’t do anything that will hurt you. I was wrong to think I was helping you before. I wasn’t right in my mind. I’m sure it’s hard to know what I mean, but-”

“It’s not.” Max said it confidently. _Not right in her mind_. She knew what that was like. And she knew what it was like in her mother’s head, if not the precise thoughts that had led her to make the mistake she did. _Hell_. Hell in your mind made you want to do anything to escape it. It wasn’t just her who felt the hell and it wasn’t just Billy. It was her mother, too. “I know what you mean. Darkness.”

The Upside Down.

Susan reached for Max’s hand. Max let her grab it. “A lot of darkness. But I’m not going to let anyone make it worse for us anymore. Okay?”

Max hesitated. They hadn’t talked about Neil or Lonnie at all since her mother had come back from the hospital. She was afraid it was too soon to mention them, but that meant she didn’t really know what had happened with Lonnie. “Anyone?”

“Lonnie’s gone,” Susan said. There was no questioning in her voice, no uncertainty. “I told him we don’t want to see him anymore. And I told him I’m friends with his ex-wife, so he probably is going to stay away.”

 _Lonnie’s gone_. The last of Max’s fears. She couldn’t switch off the worry for her mother so easily, but the way her mother was talking was new. There was no defensiveness to her. She was talking to Max like everyone else’s mothers had been talking to Max. Normally, she and her mother were like peers. Every interaction between them led to Max feeling responsible for something new. But now, Max felt a slight peace inside, like maybe it was okay for her to go to the Byers’. Like maybe this really would help both of them.

Susan pointed to the kitchen clock. “You should probably go. You don’t want to keep Joyce waiting. It’s a bit of a drive, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Enough of a drive that Max wasn’t going to be seeing her mother for a while. “When do you think I’ll see you again?”

“Oh, I think we’re going to play that by ear, honey.”

That could mean one week or four. Nobody had told Max what was going to happen when school started, if she’d be home by then. It wasn’t like the government was sanctioning this. She was truly surprised she wasn’t being forced back to California.

Susan stood up so Max did, too. They both looked at each other for a second, then Susan moved forward and pulled Max into a hug. She froze momentarily, then hugged her back. Max had hugged her mother when she was released from the hospital, but it had been more because she knew she should. She had been too anxious then to feel much of anything. Now, there was a finality in the hug that was nerve-racking but also somehow comforting. It was a confirmation that though they’d be apart, it was so that things could change. Max knew with no doubt whatsoever that both she and her mother wanted things to change.

After saying bye to her mother about three times, Max headed to the front door, waving one last time to her mother before going through it. Joyce’s Pinto was parked in front of the house, the hatch open. Max’s friends were gathered around it, saying goodbye to Will and El while they waited for Max.

Joyce, spotting Max first, said, “I’m going to go inside and say bye to your mother while you say bye to your friends.”

A wave of sadness hit Max, the same kind she’d felt last year when Will and El had moved away. By now, all of her friends had gotten used to them living far away, but it still hurt every time that they left. They’d been here so much this summer, Max had forgotten just how much time they normally spent away. It was strange to be going away with them, that now she wouldn’t be missing them but all her other friends. And Lucas.

She saved her goodbye to Lucas for last, hugging Dustin and Mike. Dustin told her he was going to try to beat her high score on Dig Dug while she was gone, a claim to which she laughed aloud. Mike said she’d better not keep El so busy that she didn’t call him as often, and she said promised that she most definitely would.

When she’d finished arguing with Mike, she grabbed Lucas by the wrist and pulled him around to the back of the Pinto. Mike and Dustin went back to talking to Will and El.

“This sucks,” Max said, figuring there was no use sugarcoating it.

“Yeah,” Lucas agreed, frowning. Her friends hadn’t acted like anything was very wrong all day, but now their sadness was showing through, especially Lucas’s. It made sense, because her friends were accustomed to Will and El leaving them and coming back. Max was always in Hawkins, however. “I guess it’s for the best, though.”

For the best. Of course it was technically for the best. That was what everyone had been saying, ever since Joyce had pulled Max aside in the hospital and asked her if it was okay if she came and stayed with them for a while. Afterwards, Max had gone to the cafeteria to get a bottle of water, and when she’d come back all her friends had been told about it. They’d kept saying it was for the best, that it was going to be okay. She knew it was just what Joyce had told them. Not that that meant it wasn’t true. It was true. It was for the best, and Max was working hard not to think that it sucked.

But with her suitcase loaded into Joyce’s car, and her having to say goodbye to Lucas in the next five minutes…well, it sucked.

“Yeah, it’s for the best, but we both know it sucks,” Max said bluntly.

Lucas made a face. She laughed. “At least we have Cerebro and stuff. I’ll call you every day, seriously. My mom said I can, even though it’s long distance.”

“Really?” Max had never been able to call El every day because she knew it could be expensive. The Sinclairs had more money than her mother did, obviously. “Well, I’ll pick up every time. Unlike _someone_ we know.”

They both glanced at Dustin. His relationship with Suzie was supposedly as strong as ever, but she was terrible at answering when he tried to talk to her on Cerebro.

“Hey, until you watch _The NeverEnding Story_ together, it’s not a real relationship.”

“Oh, yeah, for sure.”

Neither of them said anything briefly, until their laughter faded. Then Lucas said more somberly, “I’m going to miss you.”

Max was still comprehending that she wasn’t going to be seeing him every day anymore. That she wasn’t going to wake up and skateboard over to Mike’s house and watch movies with them. She couldn’t remember the last time she had gone a day without seeing Lucas.

“Me too. It’s not like it’s permanent. I’ll be back.”

When, she didn’t know. Lucas didn’t either. He didn’t ask, because both of them knew that neither of them knew when.

“Yeah.”

He hugged her, closer and longer than she’d hugged Dustin or Mike. When he pulled away, his hands lingered on her arms for a moment. Lowering his voice, he said, “I love you, Mad Max.”

“I love you, too. And tell Dustin he’s never going to beat Mad Max at Dig Dug.”

Lucas snorted. “Like he ever would.”

She grinned. “Very true. _I_ will be setting the record at whatever arcade Will and El go to.”

Even if it was small, there was something to look forward to. Will had told her there was an arcade close to their house, back when they were visiting. They had planned on going there, but then Max and the car and everything else had happened.

Lucas and Max went back around to the side of the car. She expected Dustin to comment on them going away from the group, but he didn’t. Mike seemed to have done the same, anyway, with El, and they had probably actually made out or something.

Joyce was coming down the porch steps now, car keys in hand. “Ready to go?” She asked.

Max, El, and Will all looked at each other and nodded. “Ready to go, Mom,” Will confirmed.

Max got in the backseat with El, on the side closest to the sidewalk. Joyce started the car and Max leaned her head back, eyes focused out the window at her friends. They waved, and she waved back. Her eyes flickered to the house, and she noticed that her mother was in the window, also waving. Max waved back to her, too.

Twenty minutes later, they were on the interstate, out of Hawkins. It didn’t take very long to leave, considering how weird it was to be leaving at all.

* * *

**August 4, 1986**

Max was exhausted. So exhausted that she’d stolen some of Joyce’s coffee from the coffee pot, and was now choking it down in gulps.

She wasn’t exhausted because she hadn’t been able to sleep. She had fallen asleep only half an hour after going to bed. Her insomnia had hardly bothered her since she’d come to the Byers’ house. It made sense, really. It was in her room that she’d always struggled to sleep. There was a feeling that had overtaken her there, that had channeled the worst kind of thoughts into her mind. In Eleven’s room, two hundred miles away, sleep came more easily.

She was just exhausted because she and Eleven had stayed up until one in the morning talking, and Joyce had woken her up at seven.

“We need to leave in about ten minutes,” Joyce informed Max. She was also gulping down coffee while she flipped through the newspaper.

Max finished her own coffee and dropped the empty mug into the sink. “I’ll be ready.”

She’d already eaten some toast, and all she had left to do was change. She tiptoed back down the hallway to El’s room, hoping she wouldn’t wake El or Will up. Jonathan had left an hour ago, apparently, to go mow lawns. She eased the door open quietly and darted inside, grabbing the clothes she’d laid out the night before off El’s desk chair. She carried them into the bathroom across the hall.

She didn’t know if the outfit was appropriate for where she was going, but she didn’t have a lot of experience in this matter. She figured jeans were formal enough, seeing as it was the middle of the summer. Formal usually just meant wearing something that made you suffer mildly, and jeans fit that criteria given how hot it was.

At least it wasn’t that hot at seven-thirty in the morning. Max shivered a little in her t-shirt as she followed Joyce out to her car. She hoped it wouldn’t be cold inside.

On the drive there, Joyce chatted about mundane things, like her work at the store and what movie Max, El, and Will had watched last night ( _Star Wars_ , again). Max wasn’t exactly anxious, seeing as she had known all weekend this was coming, but she was a bit tense.

The drive lasted around fifteen minutes, then Joyce was pulling into the parking lot of a multi-story grey building. It looked sort of like a university building, except that Max didn’t think it was a part of a university. A big sign at the front read _Reed Psychiatry Offices_.

“Now, are you sure you don’t want me to go in with you?” Joyce asked Max. She’d asked Max last night if she wanted to go in alone, and Max had said she did. She hadn’t changed her mind, but she did feel a little more intimidated now that they were parked right outside.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Max responded, trying not to sound nervous. She wanted to be in control of this. She always felt more in control when she without an adult, because it meant that she had to be the adult. She knew she was supposed to be adjusting that view of the world, but in this particular situation she just wanted to feel in control when she knew people in that building were going to question how in control she was.

“Okay, well, I’ll pick you up in an hour. Do you have everything?”

Max patted the pocket of her jeans. “Yeah.”

“Okay, good luck.”

Joyce smiled encouragingly as Max slowly opened the car door and got out. Max took a deep breath as she shut the car door. This was just what she had to do. It was all for the best.

Inside, Max racked her brain to remember the suite number that Joyce had told her. 2B. The second floor. There wasn’t much of a lobby inside, and it was so early that a lot of the offices around seemed dark. She located the elevator on the opposite wall from the door.

Seeing as she was only riding up one floor, the ride in the elevator was very short. It opened onto a much narrower space than the lobby downstairs had been. The office 2A was directly in front of it, and 2B was visible next to it. She walked to 2B and pushed open the door.

It looked like a normal doctor’s office. She didn’t know why she’d been expecting something different, but she’d had an image in her mind that was more hospital-esque. There was a desk at the front with a receptionist. She didn’t look up when Max came in, but she did when Max approached the desk.

“I’m here for an appointment,” Max said awkwardly. She wondered if people her age normally came here. She usually heard of psychiatrists being for older people with hysteria or, like, serious issues. She knew her mother was seeing one, but her mother was older and had overdosed on pills. Max was fifteen and didn’t really even know what Joyce had said when she made the appointment for her.

“Could I get your name, please?” The receptionist asked, pulling out a binder like the nurse at the hospital had had. It brought Max back to that unpleasant memory from a few days ago, but she shook it off.

“Maxine Mayfield. I think my appointment is for eight.” _I think_. She knew. She didn’t usually do that: make herself sound uncertain so she wouldn’t look stupid. She mentally berated herself.

“Yes, it’s for eight o’clock,” the receptionist confirmed. “We have some paperwork for you to fill out while you wait. You can take a pen and go sit down.”

She handed Max a thin packet of papers. They were stapled together. Max took a pen and went over to one of the chairs. She hadn’t known they’d expect her to fill something out. She probably should have brought Joyce in with her.

Fortunately, the information was fairly basic. It asked for her full name and date of birth and stuff like that. The main component of the packet was her insurance information, which she had been prepared for. She pulled the insurance card out of her pocket and copied down her mother’s name and insurance info. She was surprised that insurance would cover this, seeing as it wasn’t exactly a real doctor, but Joyce had assured her it would be okay. She was choosing to trust Joyce.

When she finished the packet, she brought it back to the receptionist and she told Max to go and wait for the doctor to come. It was weird how much this felt like a normal doctor. But at the normal doctor, they didn’t ask you what went on in your head. Max had no idea how this was going to go.

She tried to read a magazine, but the words ran together. She couldn’t focus. She saw the doctor coming into the waiting room before he even said her name. She pretended not to look up until he did, but she’d already put the magazine away and had started repeating a mantra in her head that she and El had come up with last night: _don’t lie_. Max and El had been joking around about how much lying they did to strangers for people who said friends don’t lie, and Max had admitted she didn’t know if she was going to inadvertently lie to the psychiatrist man. Then they’d come up with the mantra. It had been kind of a joke, but now thinking of it and El was reassuring to Max. It reminded her that after this she was going to go back to the Byers’ house and hang out with her friends and be normal.

“Maxine Mayfield, if you’ll come with me,” the doctor was saying, beckoning her to get up from her chair. She did, smoothing out her jeans. She thought she’d made a good choice wearing them, because he was wearing a suit. Medical doctors didn’t usually dress like that. They wore scrubs and lab coats and things.

The office was different from a normal doctor’s office, too. There was a couch in it. Max had never seen a couch in a doctor’s office. There was a chair across from the couch and she wasn’t entirely sure which was she was supposed to sit in, but it was answer for her when the doctor took the chair. She sat down in the very middle of the couch so that she was facing him.

“How are you today, Maxine?” His voice was very deep.

“Max,” she said automatically. “I go by Max. And I’m good.”

“You’re good?”

She shifted in her seat uncomfortably. “Uh, yes, I’m good.” She tried not to sound too sarcastic.

The doctor didn’t say any more about how she was. “Well, I figure I should start by asking you if you know how this works,” he said. “A lot of people aren’t familiar with psychiatrists.”

She thought about telling him that her mother was seeing one, but she didn’t.

From her lack of a response he seemed to gather that she wasn’t especially familiar with them, so he continued, “I spoke to your mother on the phone. She said you aren’t from here, but that you’re just living here for a while? So this isn’t a permanent arrangement, she just thinks you should talk to someone so I can help you understand what’s going on in your head.”

Her mother? No, not her mother. “That wasn’t my mother,” Max said, knowing that this wasn’t the most important piece of what he’d said but wanting to make it clear. “That was my friend’s mom. My mom is back home.”

The doctor frowned and flipped through some kind of notes he had in front of him. “Ah, I see. Yes, Joyce Byers. She said your mother had an unfortunate incident about a week ago, and you’re going through something similar. Is that right?”

Unfortunate incident. “She tried to kill herself, yeah,” Max said. She hated saying it, but she hated more when people avoided saying it. It was just like when Neil had been arrested. She didn’t want people to talk about it, but it was worse when they were clearly thinking about it but talked around it like she was dumb or too sensitive to handle it.

“Yes, of course. I’m very sorry about that. I’m sure that’s affecting you a lot. Joyce said that there has been a lot going on in your mind for a while now, though. I wonder if you could explain it to me, and tell me when it began.”

When it began. Max had tried to think of a specific day when it had begun, but she couldn’t. There was the day of Neil’s arraignment, when she’d felt so much darkness inside her despite him going to prison. There was before that, the first time Neil hit her after Billy’s death. There was the Fourth of July last year, when Billy had died. There was last Thanksgiving, when she’d had a nice time with her friends but had really begun to recognize that something wasn’t totally right in her head. She’d been so scared of being like Billy then, not as scared of this dark place in her mind.

“I guess after my stepdad was arrested,” she said slowly. _Don’t lie_. She had grown comfortable with discussing Neil with her friends, but she rarely talked about him with anyone but them or her mother. “I thought everything was supposed to get better, but it didn’t. I would go to sleep and just remember everything.”

The doctor scribbled something down on his notes. She squinted her eyes, trying to read it, but the angle wasn’t right. “Do you think it started because of your stepdad, then?” He asked. “Joyce and I didn’t talk long, but she mentioned that he was abusive towards you. Did you think of what he did to you?”

Did she? It felt like a million years ago. It had been a year now since the first time Neil had hit her. Well, technically the second time; he had hit her once before Billy died. Either way, it was hard to remember when anything had started. It felt like she’d been this way her whole life.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “I thought more about…my brother. And my mom. Like, what he did to my brother, and how my mom let him. I don’t know how to explain it, because you’ve never met him.” It was weird; it seemed like everyone had met Billy. She didn’t have to describe him to people because they knew what he was like. Now that she was with someone who had never met him, she didn’t know how to describe him.

“Your brother…” The doctor started flipping through his notes again, looking confused. “I’m sorry, I don’t have anything here about your brother. Is he living with you right now? Or is he back with your mother?”

Max curled her fingers into the fabric of the couch. What would Billy be doing if he were here now? He wouldn’t be, of course. If Billy were here, then Neil would be here, and Max wouldn’t be here, she’d be in Hawkins. Was that her answer, right there? This had begun with Billy. Everything had begun with Billy, so this had, too. Not like it was his fault. More like it was the world’s fault, for taking him away.

“He’s gone,” she said. “He died. Last year. He was my stepdad’s son.” According to Neil, he was still Neil’s son and no longer her brother. But that would always be bullshit to her. Neil could go to hell.

“Oh.” The doctor was frowning more. He was probably thinking what a mess her life was, like _no wonder she’s fucked up in the head_. Maybe psychiatrists weren’t allowed to think that. “So, after your stepdad went to prison, you thought about your brother? Do you think that’s when you started feeling…how would you describe it?”

The Upside Down. Another thing she could not explain to the doctor. For legal reasons, this time.

“Hell,” she said, using Steve’s word instead. Then she went ahead and pictured the Upside Down and added, “it’s like the real world, only everything is dark. And I know that everyone else is in the same place, but they don’t see it like I do. So it feels…”

“Disconnected?”

“Yeah. Disconnected.” She remembered Will asking her if she was there, the night before she’d learned about her mother. She’d felt more connected then. She had felt more connected ever since then, like her friends had been let in on some secret that it had been killing her to maintain. “Being this way, it made me different. I think that’s what it was like for my brother, too. So I wish that someone would have realized that.”

“Well,” the doctor replied, “it sounds like you’ve realized it. What do you mean, being this way has made you different?”

She had realized it. Too late. Years too late. It wasn’t a matter of someone realizing what was wrong with Billy before he died. It was a matter of going back before Neil ruined him. Max thought of two months ago, when she had beat up Tommy H’s brother in the arcade parking lot. Billy had been like before Neil had even married her mom.

“It’s made me someone I don’t like being,” she said finally. “It’s made me like my brother.”

“You don’t want to be like your brother?”

Oh, if only he had known Billy.

“Definitely not. I don’t think it was his fault that he was like that really, but…I definitely don’t want to be like that.”

She was _like_ that. But she wasn’t _that_. There was a difference. Billy was Billy and she would never be Billy. She didn’t know when they had started talking exclusively about Billy. This was supposed to be about her mind. She didn’t want to talk about Billy to someone who would never understand him.

“Can’t you just tell me what’s wrong with me?” She asked, a little more sharply than was probably polite. “What is it called when your mind lives in a dark dimension that’s like hell? Is there a name for that?”

The doctor studied her silently before turning his eyes back to his notes. She sat there awkwardly while he flipped through them, squinting again to see if she could read them and again finding that she could not.

When he raised his head, he paused before speaking, then said, “This sounds like depression to me, Max. Major Depressive Disorder. Have you heard of that?”

Someone had said something about depression in reference to her mother, back at the hospital. Max thought it was kind of a simple word for what was wrong in her mind. “I wouldn’t really say that I’m sad all the time,” she said, not specifically answering if she had heard of it. “It’s more complicated than that.”

He smiled at her. “So is depression. I’d like to ask you some more specific questions to formally understand what’s going on with you. Is that okay?”

So now came the part that was more like a real doctor. She figured this was why Joyce had wanted her to come in the first place, so she said, “That’s okay.”

At least she had a name for it now. She would have called it the Upside Down Disease, but Major Depressive Disorder was probably more official.

* * *

Joyce didn’t question Max about what she and the doctor had talked about. Max wouldn’t really have minded if she’d asked some surface level questions or something, but she got that Joyce wanted to respect her privacy. It was after nine, and Joyce was focusing on driving anyway, rushing to get Max home before she had to go back to work.

Back at the Byers’, Will and El had finally woken up, but they were both still in their pajamas, eating cereal in the kitchen.

“Max!” El called out as Max entered the house, shutting the door behind her. “How was it?”

There was no one adjective to describe how the appointment had gone. Max had thought it was mainly just stressful right up until she was leaving, then she’d realized that a certain relief had filled her. The doctor had told her that she could get better, that lots of people got better. She could talk to someone when she went home, he said, if she wanted to. And he had seconded what Will had said, too, that sometimes things got better after the worst came. Max was really starting to believe that might be true for her.

“It was good,” she said vaguely, still thinking. “I think.”

“They always used to ask me about the Upside Down and stuff,” Will said. “I bet it was weird that you couldn’t talk about any of that.”

Max and El looked at each other, both thinking about their conversation the previous night. “Yeah,” Max agreed, “it was kind of. But it was okay.”

She went to get her own bowl of cereal, feeling hungry again. “We should go to the arcade today,” she suggested.

They had been to the arcade three times already, despite Max having been there less than a week. There was a ridiculously high score on Dig Dug, higher than Max’s in Hawkins, but she was determined to beat it.

They spent the whole morning at the arcade. Max’s mother had given Max a whole bag full of coins from her coin jar, and Max, Will, and El shared them. El wasn’t very good at the arcade games, not having had as much practice as Max and Will, but she was fun to watch because she didn’t take them too seriously.

They went home in the afternoon and all did their own thing. Max was rereading all the Wonder Woman comic books that she’d given to El, since she hadn’t read them since last October. El sat on her bed and read magazines, asking Max every time she encountered something she didn’t understand.

Jonathan got home around five, and started making dinner. Max had never known that he was such a good cook; she’d always figured Joyce did the cooking. But Jonathan made dinner almost every night. After dinner, Max helped Will and El clean up the kitchen until she noticed the time on the kitchen clock: six.

Lucas.

She finished dumping the last dish into the dishwasher and hurried from the kitchen to El’s room. By this point, her leaving required no explanation. Lucas had called at six o’clock every night since she’d arrived.

Sure enough, the phone started ringing right when she shut El’s bedroom door. She picked up the receiver and pulled the cord until she was laying back on El’s bed, feet up in the air.

“Hi, Lucas.”

“You didn’t know it was for sure. It could have been someone else.”

“Okay, well, it _was_ you.”

“Right.”

She rolled her eyes at him. Her pause was probably indicative of the fact that she had roller her eyes.

“Whatever,” he said, not bothering to wait for a response. “How was it today?”

Getting right to the point. Last night, Max had told him she was going to see the psychiatrist today. She’d feared Lucas wouldn’t understand why, that he’d think it was something only psychos did. But if he thought that, he hadn’t said it.

“It was okay,” she answered. She rolled over so that she was lying on her stomach. “They told me I have depression.”

“Depression? Like, you’re really sad?”

That was what she’d thought, too. “No, it’s like…like when you see everything badly. Or, like, when your mind is all full of darkness. It’s a thing people have, I don’t know. But he said it could get better.”

“I told you it would, Max,” he said, but his tone wasn’t like _I-told-you-so_. He was happy. She knew how he sounded when he was happy. “Do you think that’s what’s wrong with your mom, too?”

She had thought about it. The idea that there were diagnoses for your mind was weird, though. She couldn’t believe that she and her mother would experience things the same way because they had the same “illness.” It wasn’t like having the flu or something. “I don’t know.”

She heard something in the background on Lucas’s end, then him yelling, _Shut up, Erica, I’m on the phone!_ There was a pause, then the noise of him shutting a door. “Sorry. Do you have any idea when you’re going to come back, yet?”

“I don’t know,” she said again. It felt like she had been living here for a while, but really it hadn’t been very long. She knew it would be longer. Joyce wasn’t going to send her back to live with her mom unless she thought things would really be better for Max. “We’re coming back in three weeks though, to visit. Well, maybe it won’t just be to visit, I don’t know. But at least to visit.”

“Yeah, that’s what Mike said. That’s not too bad, right? Three weeks.”

Three weeks. Three weeks ago, Max’s mother had been dating Lonnie. She’d had dinner with him. She and her friends hadn’t even been invited to the Byers’ yet.

“Could be worse.”

She heard more talking in the background.

“Sorry, Max, Erica is being really annoying. I should go. But we’ll talk longer tomorrow.”

She was just glad she’d been able to talk to him. Jonathan had said he’d drive them to McDonalds to get ice cream soon, anyway. “That’s okay,” she said. “Tomorrow. Bye.”

“Love you.”

“Love you.”

She was fifteen and it probably wasn’t supposed to give her a rush every time they said it, when they’d said it to each other a million times now.

It still did.

* * *

**August 16, 1986**

Max was the only one of her friends who really liked watching MTV, so whenever Will and El were spending time in their own rooms and the living room was empty, she came to the living room and watched it.

It was raining today. The drumming of the raindrops on the roof only enhanced the music, in Max’s opinion, and she laid sideways on the couch, half watching the TV and half zoning out. She had a reason for zoning out, other than that it was extremely relaxing lying there: her mother was going to call her soon.

Max had spoken to her mother on the phone a handful of times, but it had been a full week since the last time, and Joyce had said that Max’s mother had something important to tell her. Mainly, Max and her mother had talked about the doctor that she was seeing, and how she was fitting it in with her work.

Susan said that her psychiatrist had also told her she had depression, and for some reason this above all things had led Max to feel an intense closeness to her mother she hadn’t felt in a long time. Susan was now attending therapy, which she said was helpful. Max didn’t fully understand it, but she was glad that it seemed to be working.

But as much as she was happy that her mother was getting better, she hoped this phone call was about her coming home rather than more talk of doctors and therapy. She had been in Illinois for almost three weeks.

The TV went to commercial break. The first commercial was a Coke commercial, which inspired Max to get up from the couch and go get a Coke from the kitchen. Joyce had started buying it for her every time she went to the store, just like she bought Eggos for El. Max took a can of Coke from the fridge and carried it back to the coffee table. She was about to open her Coke when the phone rang.

Her mom.

She scrambled to the kitchen phone like she was in a race against time, though she knew Will and El both knew her mother was calling and weren’t going to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Max!” Her mother always sounded happy to hear from her. Max had almost erased the awful memory of the first phone call her mother had ever made to her here in this kitchen, before she’d… Well, Max was doing her best not to obsess over that.

They talked about inconsequential things at first, like how Max had finally beat the high score at the arcade and how Susan had been taken off the probation at Enzo’s she’d been put on after she missed her shift.

Max knew her mother was trying to segue into whatever important thing she wanted to talk about by the change in her tone of voice.

“Max, I was talking to Joyce,” Susan began. “And I had an idea that I think might really change things for us.”

That could literally mean anything. “What?” Max prompted. Her mother sounded excited, not anxious, so it had to be a good thing.

“I think we should move, honey.”

Move.

Move?

Max’s heart stopped.

_“Move?”_

“Oh, no!” Susan exclaimed, obviously realizing how Max was interpreting what she had said. But what other way was there of interpreting that? “Not out of Hawkins, just to a new house. A different house.”

Oh, that was the other way. It took a minute for Max to comprehend what her mother had said. “A different house in Hawkins?”

“Yes, a different house in Hawkins. Max, honey, our house is, like-”

“Cursed,” Max finished for her. She comprehended it now. And she was excited, too.

“Yeah, cursed. Lonnie was moving, and-”

Lonnie? Max’s heart stopped again. “You’re talking to Lonnie?”

“Oh, no!” Susan exclaimed for a second time. “I just mean, I learned a lot about it from when we were talking. Which we are not anymore, I promise. But Joyce thinks it’s a good idea, too. We can get a new house in Hawkins, even one that’s cheaper. And then I can work less.”

Max had not expected this when Joyce had told her her mother was going to call. She had not expected anything as _good_ as this.

Something else occurred to her. “Does this mean I can come home?”

Her mother hesitated, but her answer came through clearly. Confidently. “Soon.”

Soon.

“Max, the Party is talking on Cerebro!” Will’s voice came from down the hall, reaching Max in the kitchen. She saw his vague outline in the darkness of the hallway, and then he called, “Sorry, I forgot you were on the phone!”

“Oh, Max, you can go talk to your friends,” Susan said, having heard Will through the phone. “This was all I had to tell you.”

 _All I had to tell you_ , like it wasn’t huge. It was huge. She wasn’t going to have to live in that house anymore. She was coming home soon.

“Are you sure? I don’t have to go.”

“I’m sure. Bye, Max. I love you.”

Max hung up the phone and sprinted down the hall to Will’s room, where he and El were standing in front of his radio.

Dustin’s voice was coming through it, but Max grabbed the talking piece of Will’s radio from him.

“Dustin, shut up,” she said.

“What? Max?”

“Yeah, _Max_. By the way, I scored eight hundred and ninety thousand on Dig Dug yesterday. But that’s not what I wanted to say. I wanted to-”

“Eight hundred and ninety thousand?” Dustin, of course, would focus on that.

“Yeah, but this is bigger.” Well, bigger to her. Dustin might still thing Dig Dug was bigger news, but whatever. “I’m coming home soon, and I’m moving. NOT out of Hawkins, but to a new house. That’s what my mom just said.”

“Really?” Will exclaimed, before Dustin could react.

El grabbed Max and hugged her sideways. “Good news,” she said earnestly.

“Yes!” Was Dustin’s response, through the radio. “But holy shit, Max, eight hundred and ninety thousand?”

“ _Yes_ , eight hundred and ninety thousand. Now I have to get that in Hawkins, too. When I come home.”

When she came home.

Soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize this isn't the most dramatic of chapters, but I had to show things getting better gradually. This story has been super intense but I have to end it so it has to get less intense, I'm sorrrrry I know you guys like the intensity but things must end.
> 
> I ended up combining some content to have this have 18 chapters, so the next chapter is the last chapter I KNOW IT'S SAD. I'm guessing it's going to be pretty long because I have a lot of stuff I want to fit into it. I'm not choosing to think about the sadness of this ending until tomorrow.
> 
> Again, I'm sorry for you guys who were expecting more drama, I just kind of finished the chapter yesterday and was like holy shit I feel like there has been enough horrible drama in this.
> 
> Also Google literally thinks I live in Indiana like it now has listed my location as in Morgan County, Indiana because I search so much random stuff for this story I can't


	18. Nostalgic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot believe this is over. This is the second longest chapter in the series at least.....? (Fourth of July stayed the longest, it was my favorite anyway haha). Like you'll see why I titled the chapter this in the story but honestly I mainly did it because I listened to Nostalgic by A R I Z O N A while writing this and felt sad.

**August 24, 1986**

When Max got up, her last night sleeping in this bedroom would end. She’d been awake for over ten minutes, but she couldn’t bring herself to get out of bed. It was so strange that this was ending. This was the house she’d lived in for the best parts of her life. It was crazy to think that given all the horrible things that had happened here, but it was true. Less than two years ago, she and Billy and her mother and Neil had all arrived at this house. Her first time setting foot in Hawkins had been when she got out of the car and walked up the porch steps to the front door. She’d slept in this room her first night in Hawkins, before she knew anything about anyone that lived here. There was a sadness in her at the prospect of getting out of bed and beginning the end of her connection to this house.

Mostly, she was excited.

She scanned her bedroom, noticing how empty it already felt. The big stuff was still there, like all of the furniture, but the small stuff that had made her room special was gone. Her street car piggy bank and her radio were visible in a not-yet-closed box on her floor. The box of her most special stuff, that she wanted to have the moment she got to the new house.

She heard a knock on her bedroom door, but wasn’t really startled by it. She knew she needed to get up. She rolled her legs over the side of the bed as her mother pushed open the door a crack.

“Max, they’re going to be here soon. You really need to get up.”

Max gestured to her legs, which were now touching the floor. “What does it look like I’m doing? Sleeping?”

Susan shut the door without bothering to respond. Max stood up, glancing back at her bed. She hadn’t been able to sleep last night, whether because she was excited to move or because she was back in her same room, she didn’t know. Jonathan had driven Max, Will, El, and Joyce all back to Hawkins yesterday. She was still getting used to being back, but after spending the entire previous afternoon in Mike’s basement, things felt fairly normal. She had to keep reminding herself that she wasn’t leaving the country, that nothing was going to change but the things she _wanted_ to change.

Max had laid out clothes on her dresser, as all the rest of her clothes were already packed up in suitcases. When she was finished getting ready, she headed out to the kitchen to eat breakfast. The kitchen stove showed that it was only eight o’clock. She hadn’t been exactly sure what time it was, because she’d packed up her alarm clock yesterday.

Susan was eating corn flakes, and she passed Max the box as she sat down at the table. “Think we’re going to be able to do everything today?” She asked as Max started pouring corn flakes into a bowl.

Max thought of last October, when they had helped the Byers move. “Yeah, probably.”

Max was halfway through eating when there was loud knocking at the front door. She glanced at her mother, who gave her a prompting look, and then got up to go open the door.

All of her friends and Jonathan stood outside, Jonathan holding some kind of toolbox. She stepped back, allowing them to enter the house, and was about to shut the door when she saw Steve also coming up the porch steps.

“Don’t shut me out,” he said, pushing his way past her, into the house. “You need all the muscle you can get in this operation.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Muscle? At least Jonathan brought tools.”

Steve’s eyes flickered to where Jonathan was standing, holding the toolbox. “Okay, well, he’s just showing off. You’ll see who’s better at moving.”

“I think the point is that you’re both supposed to be good,” Dustin said dryly, “it’s not a competition. Like, Jonathan already won Nancy.”

“Excuse me,” Mike objected, “my sister isn’t a prize to be won! But if she was, Jonathan won her, yeah.”

Though Max had spent the better half of the previous day hanging out with her friends, she was still getting used to being back with them after having been away so long. She kept catching herself feeling some kind of nostalgia at them joking around, like she was going to lose it again. Then she remembered that she was here for the long haul now, that hopefully nothing would take her away from Hawkins until she went to college. It filled her with a kind of elation every time.

Susan came into the living room from the kitchen now, holding a piece of paper. Max had seen her poring over it last night, making a task list she’d found in a book on moving. She looked nervous to address such a big group of people, even though all of them were under the age of twenty. Max noticed how everyone immediately stopped talking at her entrance, like they understood that she was shy.

“I made a list of what you all can each do,” Susan said awkwardly. “If you want to do something else, that’s fine, I just thought-”

“We’ll do exactly what you tell us,” Dustin interrupted boldly. Then, realizing that he had interrupted, he added, “Sorry.”

Susan smiled and blushed, but continued, “Okay, I wrote that Steve and Dustin can work on the living room, Jonathan and Will can work on my room, Mike and El can work on the kitchen, and Max and Lucas can work on Max’s room. I’ll help whoever needs help.” She hadn’t said anything about Billy’s room. Max supposed there wasn’t much to pack up besides the bed. She’d make sure nothing was left behind in there.

Max walked with Lucas through the house and down the hall to her bedroom. “I already packed up a lot of stuff,” she said. By _a lot of stuff_ , she meant most of her stuff. She had been too nervous to sleep last night, so she’d taken it upon herself to load her room with boxes and to start filling them.

“You really did,” Lucas said, looking at all of the boxes. “What are we supposed to do?”

“Just close all the boxes,” Max said, “and then we can go help Steve and Dustin. There’s a shit ton of stuff left in the living room.”

She passed Lucas some masking tape and they set to work taping the boxes shut. She thought it would be fast moving, but it ended up taking half an hour to tape up all the boxes and push them out of Max’s room into the hall. Then they went back to the living room, where Steve was struggling to disassemble their coffee table.

“You’re going to break it!” Dustin was saying, doing nothing but stare at Steve, who had the coffee table on its side and was attempting to fold the legs in.

“Jesus, they don’t fold,” Max said, rushing to stop Steve. “We’re just taking the table as is, what the hell.”

“My dad told me things usually come apart,” Steve protested. “Are you an expert on furniture?”

“You’re clearly not,” Max retorted. “My mom meant for you guys to pack up the stuff in here, not break our furniture.”

“I thought I was supposed to be doing that. You know, because Jonathan and I are, like, the…you know…”

“Muscle?” Max said, referencing what he’d said earlier. Like before, she raised her eyebrows at this. “You can disassemble stuff later, god.”

“Well, why not now?” Steve argued. “Don’t you have more furniture than a coffee table?”

Max shrugged. “Okay, whatever, come take apart my bed. But if you break it, you’re going to have to buy me a new one. Like, a better one. With your dad’s money.”

“Why my dad’s money?”

“Because you earn so much at Family Video.”

Max spun around and started for her bedroom, leaving Lucas with Dustin. She figured she had better watch Steve in case he broke something. Like himself.

“Hey,” Steve called as he hurried to follow her, “who was the one that gave you twenty bucks when you were trying to run away?”

She stopped at the entrance to her bedroom and waited for him. When he got to where she was standing, she said, “If you think a bed costs twenty bucks, you are not going to make it in the real world.”

He ignored her, pushing past her into her bedroom. “Shut up and help me move the mattress.”

She helped him rip the top sheet and then the fitted sheet off the bed, leaving her bare mattress. Then he hoisted the mattress up, gesturing for her to help him lean it against the wall. It bumped up against the window, blocking some of the light out of the room.

Steve went back to the bed frame, presumably to do whatever it was you did to begin taking apart a bed frame, but paused when he seemed to see something through it. “Did you miss that box?” He asked.

Immediately, Max snapped into focus. The box. She had totally forgotten that when they moved her bed, it would no longer be hidden there. She had been away for so long that she hadn’t thought about it as much.

“It’s nothing,” she said quickly, crouching down beside her bed to pull the box out from under it. She glanced around like there might be some solution to where she could put it, but she and Lucas had taped up all of the boxes except for the one with her piggy bank and radio in it.

What was her mother going to say if she saw that Max had this? Would she remember that it had been in her closet? It wasn’t that Max was scared of her mother being particularly angry about her having it, more that she might want to talk about it. Her mother was trying to talk about everything nowadays. Max appreciated that talking was valuable, but she didn’t want to talk about these pictures with her mother.

“You sure it’s nothing?” Steve said, plainly confused.

Out of all the boxes in their house, this was in the top five for the boxes Max would be most upset about something happening to.

“It’s just some random stuff,” Max answered vaguely. She was still trying to think of how she was going to pack it so that her mother never saw it. It was too big to fit in the box with her radio.

“I mean, if it’s not important, we can just get rid of it,” Steve offered. Max must have looked scandalized, because he said quickly, “Or not.”

Max had never really thought about sharing the box with anyone. It was a tie to Billy that she felt only she would ever understand. Nobody else could look at a photo of Billy and see what she saw. But she had been trying harder to follow _friends don’t lie_ lately. And she had been thinking about Billy a lot since her appointment with the psychiatrist, about how isolating it was that he lived in her head and no one else’s.

She set the box down on the bed frame, so that it was balancing between two of the slats, and slid off the lid. Steve leaned forward so that he could see inside it.

“You don’t have to show me if it’s special, kid,” he said, but she could see the intense curiosity written on his face.

“It is special, but I’ll show you,” Max responded. Knowing that the sight of closed envelopes wasn’t immediately revealing of what was contained within the box, she removed an envelope from the top and handed it to Steve.

He opened it and pulled out a stack of pictures. Max recognized which stack it was, the ones from the beach and the Fourth of July. Steve squinted down at the top photo, one of Billy on the beach.

“Jesus, he looks so happy here,” he said. _He_ , not Billy. There was no questioning of whether or not it was Billy, or why she had these photos at all.

“He was,” she said. Of course, she hadn’t been there. She hadn’t been in Billy’s life at the time. That was part of the reason he _was_ so happy. He was never going to be that happy when she was his sister because her being his sister was a product of something that had made him unhappy. But she knew he was happy there. The beach photos were her favorite of all of them.

“Shit, it’s weird to see him like that,” Steve remarked, flipping through more of the photos. His eyes darkened slightly at the ones of Billy on the Fourth of July. He had noticed the change in the smile, too. She’d figured only she would recognize it, because she knew the different faces of Billy. It was part of the reason she’d never wanted anyone else to see these photos. They might think Billy was happy in times that he wasn’t. “You can see him kind of change. That’s weird.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you look at these a lot?” Steve asked, handing her back the photos. She wouldn’t have minded if he’d looked at them longer, but he probably didn’t want to overstep.

She shook her head. “Not a lot. I just want to have them. Like, I want someone to have them, you know.”

Steve nodded, like he got it. “Hey, go get a Sharpie. There’s one in the kitchen or something.”

She thought of saying that she knew where the Sharpies were in her own house, but she didn’t. She just left Steve in her bedroom with the box and grabbed a Sharpie from the kitchen. When she brought it back to him, he had taped the box shut with the masking tape Max and Lucas had used earlier.

Steve took the Sharpie from her and tilted the box so the tape was facing him. Then he wrote in large black letters over it, _Max’s Stuff, Do Not Open_.

“Seems good enough,” Steve said, picking up the box and dropping it into her arms. “Your mom doesn’t seem like the type to fuck with your stuff.”

Max laughed. “Why, because she’s shyer than Eleven?”

“Uh, yeah, that’s exactly why.”

She read over the lettering on the box one more time. “You’re right. Thanks.”

“Anytime, kid. Now let me do the real work here.” He pointed to her bed.

She rolled her eyes. “I meant it when I said you have to pay for it if you break it. Lucas and Dustin are witnesses.”

“I took out a Russian guard last year, Max. I can take apart a bed.”

Not even bothering to argue the correlation between the two, she set the box of photos on the floor and sat down next to it to give her a prime viewing position for when Steve inevitably screwed something up.

* * *

Five hours later, the entire house was largely packed up. Though it had taken a similar amount of time to help the Byers move, Max was surprised at how quickly everything she and her mother owned could be put into a box and dropped into a U-Haul. All of the furniture was already in the U-Haul, and Max’s friends were busy loading up the last of the boxes.

She’d been helping them, but she hadn’t forgotten that there was one last thing for her to do. Without announcing that she was leaving, she backed away from the U-Haul and headed back up the porch steps into the house. She heard footsteps behind her and saw Lucas coming, so she waited for him before walking back into the house.

It was freaky how empty it was. Susan had taken it upon herself to sweep the living room once all the furniture and boxes had been removed from it, so it looked extremely clean but disturbingly barren. Their house in California had looked this way when they’d moved, too, but it had been a couple years and it was impossible to imagine the way it looked until you saw it for yourself.

“Did you forget something?” Lucas asked, also looking around the empty living room. “I think we got everything.”

“I didn’t forget anything,” Max replied. She hadn’t forgotten. She’d just been waiting. “Come with me.”

She walked slowly from the living room to the kitchen to the hall. All day, she’d been thinking how one of the times she made this short walk would be her last. She was guessing that this time really was her last, and it filled her with a certain somberness. The sound of her footsteps seemed to echo off the walls. She didn’t know if it had always done that and she’d just tuned it out, or if it was because of how empty the house was.

At the end of the hall, the door to Billy’s room was shut. After they’d packed up his bed, the only furniture still in the room, Max had told her mother she would take care of the rest. Her mother had respected this, and not even gone in there on her “final” walkthrough.

Max grabbed the knob and twisted it, jolts of emotion shooting through her like electricity at the thought that this was the last time she’d ever come in this room. She felt Lucas behind her, standing so close to her that his shoulder bumped hers.

Inside, the room was as empty as the rest of them. The only thing that remained were the posters: the reason Max had told her mother she’d take care of the rest. She entered the room quietly, like she needed to preserve its sanctity.

“What was this room like when Billy was alive?” Lucas asked, also being quiet.

Max remembered when El had come in here. She had been hyper aware of all the weird stuff in Billy’s room then, the posters of girls and the cigarettes and the Playboy magazines.

“It was how you’d imagine it,” she answered. Because really, the surface level things about Billy were very much how people would expect them to be. His room, his car, the things he did on the weekends. It was in the secrets that Billy kept, the things normal people would never see or think to imagine, where the darkness lived.

Lucas stared around, eyes thoughtful like he was trying to picture what it must have looked like. “Do you think you’ll miss living here at all?”

The things Max had been feeling all day led to this being a difficult question to answer. The emptier the house had become, the more memories she had been able to recall from it. Most of her memories of this house were bad: memories of Neil, fights, things like that. But she had some good memories, too, or at least slightly more complicated ones.

Still, she was confident when she said, “No. Billy hated living here, and I hated living here. There’s nothing to miss.”

Lucas nodded. “That’s good, right? It makes it easy.”

Easy. Was leaving here easy? She supposed it was, compared to when people normally moved away. But she didn’t know if it was good.

“It would probably be nicer if I had something to miss about it,” Max admitted. “But I guess I’m just taking everything worth missing.”

With that strong in her mind, she moved forward to Billy’s posters. It was funny that “Filth Hounds of Hades” was a phrase she had repeated to herself to fall asleep before. She grabbed the edges of that poster now, pulling it gently away from the wall. Lucas, realizing what she was doing, moved to help her take down the rest of the posters.

When they were done, she collected them in a small pile on the floor, lining up the edges. She rolled them up so they wouldn’t bend, and took a rubber band out of her pocket that she had stolen from Jonathan. She rubber-banded the roll of posters securely, and then backed up, scanning the room to verify everything else was gone.

“That’s it,” she confirmed. “We should probably go back now.”

It was getting to be later in the afternoon now, and her mother was supposed to return the U-Haul by four o’clock. She walked haltingly towards the door to Billy’s room, Lucas in front of her. When she reached the doorway, she turned around and looked back into the room.

Just like everything else, it was so empty that nobody could guess what had once been inside. It was just a room now. Someone else would move into this house and maybe some little kid would have this room. But while Max would no longer think of her old room as her bedroom because she had a new bedroom in her new house that she would rather think of as hers, this would always be Billy’s bedroom. He never got to leave this house. She hoped that taking his posters out of it was enough.

She closed the door behind her and Lucas and resisted the urge to go back and look one last time. It was just a room. Billy was more than a room. He was in the photos that, thanks to Steve, would be hers forever. He was in these posters, too.

Max’s box with her radio and piggy bank was still at the front of the house. She was taking it with her in the car to make sure she didn’t lose it. She dropped the roll of posters into it, next to her radio. Then she scooped up the box and carried it through the open front door. She turned around to stare through the door at the house, to take it in one last time, then forced herself back around and down the porch steps.

She was ready.

* * *

It was after eleven at night. A breeze blew through the window of Max’s new bedroom, causing her to shiver. She had opened it before she got into bed so it would be cold enough for her to sleep underneath her blankets, but then she’d gotten out of bed. She wasn’t tired.

Her mother had said goodnight about twenty minutes earlier. Max knew logically she should be tired, that she had been working all day to pack and load and then unload and unpack. But it seemed that the adrenaline hadn’t worn off yet. Just being in this new house gave her a rush, like there were so many new possibilities available to her. It was only two bedrooms and twelve hundred square feet, but it felt like her world had just gotten much bigger.

Max sat on the end of her bed for another five minutes, staring out the window at the streetlights. Her window faced the front of the house, and the glow from the streetlights was like having a night light. She loved the way it bathed her new room in golden light, not so bright that she wouldn’t be able to sleep but bright enough that she wouldn’t describe the room as truly dark.

Max was staring out the window when she realized what she was missing. In the stress of unloading all the boxes from the U-Haul in time for Susan to take it back to the depot, she’d forgotten.

She jumped off the end of her bed, her feet barely making a sound on the carpet of her bedroom. She had never had a bedroom with carpeting before; she liked how soft it was, how it didn’t really feel like she was sneaking around because she didn’t have to tiptoe.

She opened her bedroom door somewhat normally, not concerned that her mother would be mad if she heard Max was awake. Max was quite sure she’d understand. The hall led directly into the living room rather than into the kitchen like in the old house. And like she’d thought it would be, her box was right in the middle of the living room.

Instead of carrying the whole box to her room, Max bent down and removed her radio and the roll of posters. The two things she needed. She slid her feet along the hard wood of the living room until she reached the carpet of the hallway, and then walked normally back to her room.

The glow from the streetlights was enough that she didn’t have to turn the light on to see the posters. She could have if she wanted to, but she didn’t. She carefully removed the rubber band from the roll and unrolled them. She was happy to see that none of them were creased at all.

Starting with the Tank poster, Max grabbed the roll of Scotch tape off her dresser she’d stolen earlier for this purpose, and placed four small loops of tape on the back of each corner of the poster. She stood on her bed and hung it on the wall, right above her bed in the center. She didn’t know if this poster had been Billy’s favorite, but it was hers.

She hummed noiselessly to herself as she hung up the remaining posters, making a mental note to get out her record player tomorrow. As Neil had taken down many of the more questionable posters in Billy’s room after he died, there weren’t a ton, but there were enough to fit a couple on each wall of the room.

If anyone besides her friends ever came into her room, they were going to think she was into a lot of stuff she wasn’t into. She didn’t mind; considering how cool Billy had been, it would probably only make her more cool by extension. Not that that was why she was hanging them up.

She fell down onto her bed, facing the wall. A sense of peace overtook her at their being here. Not tearing her eyes away from them, she felt around on her bed for her radio and pulled out the antenna. It was pretty late, so it was kind of a long shot, but she tried anyway.

“Lucas? Do you copy?”

There wasn’t an immediate response, but she hadn’t expected one. She dropped the radio back down next to her. A moment later, the sound of Lucas’s voice came through it: “Max, I copy. What’s up?”

Whispering slightly so she wouldn’t wake up her mother, Max answered, “I was just thinking about something. Well, not really just, but now that I’m back, I want to do something. Will you meet me here tomorrow? Over.”

“Here? Like your house? Over.”

Her house. This house. This house that was five minutes closer to the cul-de-sac, that had carpeting in the bedrooms. “Yeah, my house. At ten. Over.”

“Sure. Ten.” He didn’t ask where they were going. She would have told him, but she preferred not to say yet, so she was glad he didn’t. “How do you like your new house? Over.”

“It’s cool.” She didn’t know what else to say about it. It was cool. Well, not cool like Billy and Madonna and skateboards were cool, but cool like it was cool that she was living here now. “I won’t keep you awake or you won’t be here at ten tomorrow. Goodnight.”

“That’s not true! But okay, goodnight. Over and out.”

She dropped her radio back down next to her on the bed, and flopped over so that she was on her stomach. She reached forward until she had ahold of the alarm clock on her bedside table. Feeling for the buttons because she couldn’t properly see them in the darkness, she set her alarm for eight-forty.

Then she lifted her blankets and got into bed. Now she was facing two different posters across the room, hanging above her dresser. Billy probably didn’t look at his posters before he fell asleep, but she had a feeling she was going to be doing this every night.

* * *

**August 25, 1986**

Max was up before her alarm, already shaking money out of her piggy bank when it went off. She quickly shut it off and continued shaking out the coins. She thought she needed a little over a dollar, but she was bringing extra just in case.

She combed her hair excessively until it laid relatively flat. It was ideal if she looked a little bit older. When she finally gave up on getting it any flatter, she hurried out of her room, into the living room, and out the front door. Her skateboard was right in front of the door, and she got onto it and kicked off; there were no steps up to the front door of the new house.

She had brought her skateboard to Illinois, but there was something different about skateboarding in Hawkins. She thought it had something to do with her certainty about where she was going. Moving shook that up slightly, as she didn’t know this specific area of Hawkins as well, but soon she was on a more main drag and on her way to Bradley’s Big Buy.

There weren’t many people in the store. It was just after nine on a Monday morning in the summer, so it made sense. She’d rather nobody she knew saw her, anyway. She made her way to the back of the store, where the pharmacy was. She’d come with Billy before, so she was pretty sure that was where the cigarettes were kept.

Sure enough, there were rows of different brands of cigarettes in front of the pharmacy counter. Ignoring the look the pharmacist at the counter was giving her, she crouched down and selected a pack of Marlboros. She raised herself back up to her full height and placed it on the counter.

“You have to be sixteen to purchase cigarettes,” the pharmacist informed her.

She smiled. “I am sixteen.”

The pharmacist squinted at her. Fortunately, he did not look like he cared very much. He probably smoked himself. Max remembered her dad had once said that the very people who totally shouldn’t smoke often did. Her dad smoked, so she wasn’t even sure what he was talking about, but she tried not to smirk at the idea that this pharmacist was judging her for buying cigarettes she wasn’t even going to smoke.

“Do you have any form of ID?” He asked.

“I’m sixteen,” she answered evenly. “I don’t have my license yet.”

The pharmacist paused again, then shrugged. “You look sixteen. That’ll be a dollar and ten cents.”

She pulled the coins out of her pocket, dropping them onto the counter in semi-neat piles. Mature people probably didn’t pay for their cigarettes in dimes, but she was pretty sure she was already in the clear.

The pharmacist took the money and pushed the cigarettes towards her. She thought he might say something about being safe or something, but he didn’t. He probably figured she was already a chainsmoker. After all, Billy had definitely smoked when he was fifteen.

She pocketed the pack of cigarettes and marched confidently out of the store. When she was outside, she hopped on her skateboard and started back for her new house.

Lucas wasn’t there yet, as it was only around nine-thirty. She killed time by starting to unpack her clothes into her dresser. She was so focused on this task that she barely noticed the knock at the front door.

“I thought you’d overslept,” Lucas said sarcastically as she swung open the door, him mid-knock. He lowered his hand. “So where are we going?”

Rather than inviting him inside, she exited the house and shut the front door. She didn’t answer him until she’d finished locking it with her new house keys. “The graveyard.”

“The graveyard?”

“Yes.” She removed the pack of Marlboro cigarettes from her shorts pocket and held them up.

“You want to smoke in the graveyard?” Lucas sounded horrified.

She rolled her eyes, resisting the urge to laugh at how ridiculous that was. Though she hadn’t beat anyone up in a while, her reputation as a badass clearly lived on. “No, Jesus. Just come on.”

She got on her skateboard and waited for Lucas to start pedaling on his bike before she started moving, too. Earlier that morning she had looked up the way to the graveyard, but she pretended like she knew it off the top of her head, telling Lucas where to turn.

While Max’s new house was closer to most things, the graveyard was definitely closer to her old house. They passed close to Cherry Street on the way there. Max considered going up it, just to look at the house and process that it was no longer hers. But she was on a mission and it was out of the way.

There was no way of avoiding passing past the spot where Max had crashed the car, though. She knew it had been towed, that it was beyond repair and had probably been demolished, but she spotted easily where it had been. The tree was still intact, but she thought she might see a few flecks of paint on it from the hood of the car. It was hard to tell, because she and Lucas were speeding past it fairly quickly. She could have slowed down if she wanted to, but she didn’t.

Max hadn’t been to the graveyard proper in a long time. Last November. She shuddered slightly at the memory, though she tried to prevent it from permeating her mind. Even with all of the effort she was exerting to focus on the present, images of blue flowers and riding in Neil’s car swam into her mind.

 _That’s why you’re coming_ , she reminded herself. _Things are different now_.

She wanted to be here. She wasn’t here because her mother had told her come. She wasn’t here because she was scared of what would happen if she didn’t. She was here because she wanted to be.

“Do you want to say something?” Lucas asked.

They were standing in front of Billy’s grave. **Billy Hargove, 1967-1985. Loved and missed, now and for the rest of our lives**. There were no more blue flowers. They were gone. It wasn’t just Max who hadn’t been here in a long time. Nobody had.

“No, I don’t think so,” she said. That wasn’t why she was here. She wasn’t here to say she was sorry. She had done that already. She had felt that already. She had thought everything she could think about Billy and felt everything she could feel about Billy. She would continue to think those things and feel those things forever. It had nothing to do with depression, nothing to do with getting better. He would always be with her. She wasn’t trying to be deep about it today.

She was here because she wanted to be here. Because this grave was proof that Billy had lived, had really lived. It wasn’t like he was alive here. But it was evidence of his existence.

“Did you just want to see it?” Lucas kept looking back and forth between her and the grave, trying to deduce why they were here without asking.

To answer his unspoken question, she pulled out the pack of cigarettes from her pocket. She opened the top of it. The cigarettes were so clean looking. She’d only ever seen them when they were being smoked by Billy or smashed in an ashtray.

She’d contemplated leaving the whole pack, but it was probably considered pollution. Instead, she took out just one cigarette and dropped it at the base of the grave.

“Remember when we brought those flowers?” She said. She didn’t think Lucas could have possibly forgotten. Obviously it was a more poignant memory for her, but it wasn’t something anyone would easily forget.

“Of course,” he replied.

“Well, that was bullshit. Billy didn’t like flowers. But he did like cigarettes. I don’t know, it’s kind of stupid, but-”

“It’s not stupid.”

It wasn’t stupid. She knew that. She had hoped Lucas wouldn’t think so. Really, she’d known he wouldn’t. That had been the reason she’d brought him with her last time, too. He understood.

They stood in silence for a minute, looking down at the grave and the cigarette in front of it. Then, Lucas took the pack of the remaining cigarettes out of her hand.

“So,” he said, “are we going to smoke these now?”

He laughed at the dirty look she gave him. “Oh my god, no!” She exclaimed, snatching the cigarettes back from him. “We’re going to throw them away, Jesus Christ. I’m not trying to get lung cancer.”

She spun around, ready to leave the grave. Taking the hint, Lucas began walking with her back to where they’d left his bike and her skateboard.

“Billy was more badass than you,” Lucas said jokingly as she dropped the rest of the cigarettes into a trash can at the edge of the graveyard.

She flipped him off. But instead of arguing, she responded, “Yeah, I guess he was.”

* * *

**September 2, 1986**

Summer was over.

It was hard to believe when the weather forecast said it was going to be eighty-three degrees later in the day, but summer was over. They were sophomores.

The bell was ringing, signaling the beginning of their first class of the next one hundred eighty days of sophomore year. Waving goodbye to the rest of their friends, Max and Mike headed into geometry together. Max had been lucky enough to have at least one of her friends in nearly all of her classes.

Max sat down next to Mike at the back of the classroom. The teacher had written on the chalkboard that they were going to be going over the syllabus, the most boring thing you could do on the first day of school.

“What should we do tonight?” Mike asked, speaking loudly in order to be heard over the literal screaming coming from the hall. “Since it’s, like, a special day.”

“A special day?” She snorted.

“The first day of school is a special day, don’t be annoying.”

“Okay, sorry for offending you.” She held up her hands sarcastically, like she was surrendering. “We should go to the video store and then watch something.”

“Are we ever going to get new ideas?” Mike said. “We literally do that, like, four times a week.”

They really did do it a lot. But it wasn’t like her friends hadn’t played Dungeons and Dragons for hours on end when they were younger. “Do you _want_ to do something different?” She responded, already knowing the answer.

Mike gave her a dirty look but said, “No, not really.”

“That’s what I thought.”

They had to stop talking after that, because the teacher clapped her hands for them all to shut up and listen to her go over the syllabus. Max and Mike glanced at each other throughout the class, whenever she did something mildly funny, and shook with silent laughter. It was always better to have a friend in your class. It was just a fact.

The first day went by quickly, with all the stress of finding new classrooms in the five minute passing time. Max had Spanish with Lucas and Dustin, science with Mike and Dustin, English with Lucas, and history with Dustin.

After school, they rushed to leave the school parking lot ahead of everyone else that was biking. The sidewalks were crowded, because it was so hot that people who normally were driven by their parents biked instead. They managed to get ahead of the pack, and arrived at Family Video in record time.

They’d forgotten to verify that Steve was even working, but luckily, he was there. He had dropped down to part time and begun taking classes at a junior college near Hawkins. He grinned when they entered the video store.

“How was your first day?” He called as they made a beeline for the shelves, all wanting to be the one to pick the movie.

“It was good!” They called back, the most generic yet reasonably accurate response. Nothing bad had happened. They weren’t freshmen anymore and they weren’t seniors. It was probably going to be the most generic year of their academic careers.

After everything that had happened in the past couple years, Max was okay with generic.

Lucas was the one to find the movie: _The Supernaturals_ , which had just been released on VHS. Max wasn’t a huge fan of zombie movies, but she agreed on it anyway.

While Dustin forked over the money for the rental, Steve focused his attention on Max. “Hey, kid, how’s the new house?” He’d seen her multiple times after her move, but he kept asking her this. Every single time, she had said that it was cool, just like she’d said to Lucas.

“It’s great.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“All thanks to my moving skills, I presume,” he said, grinning.

She rolled her eyes. “One hundred percent because of that, yeah.”

Steve handed Dustin the rental slip. “When are you guys going to start, like, getting drunk instead of watching movies in Mike’s basement?” He said sarcastically.

“When you stop working a minimum wage job in your hometown,” Dustin retorted.

The VHS of _The Supernaturals_ secure in Dustin’s backpack, they started to leave.

“That’s disrespectful!” Steve yelled after them.

Max glanced back at Steve before following her friends out the door, laughing at the expression on his face.

Back at Mike’s, they entered the house through the garage and raided the fridge for Cokes before heading down to the basement to watch the movie. They all flopped down into their usual spots while Mike loaded the VHS tape into the VCR.

Max was right in it not being a good movie. When the credits rolled onto the screen, even Lucas said it was the worst movie he had seen all summer.

“It’s not summer anymore,” Mike reminded him.

“You know what I meant,” Lucas responded.

Max looked over to the clock. It was just after six. “I should go home,” she said, standing up. “Dinner.”

It was weird to say that. _Dinner_ , like she wasn’t going to be eating alone if one of her friends didn’t invite her. Which she wasn’t. That was the weird part.

“Yeah, me too,” Lucas said, also getting up.

“Me too,” Dustin seconded. “Bye, Mike.”

“Bye, Mike,” Max and Lucas chorused, following Dustin up the stairs and out of the basement.

They hurried through the house to the door into the garage, succeeding in their attempts to avoid Mrs. Wheeler, who would inevitably question them about the first day. Max skated out of the garage ahead of Lucas and Dustin, then waited for them to catch up to her.

They passed Lucas’s house shortly after leaving the Wheelers’, and he turned up the path, calling out bye to them. When they reached the end of the cul-de-sac, Max turned the opposite way from Dustin. She was still getting accustomed to the new path home, but it was quickly cementing itself in her mind. She said the turns to herself as she made them, and then she was there, abandoning her skateboard outside and letting herself into the house.

Susan wasn’t home yet, but Max didn’t expect her to be. She got off at six-thirty. Max just wanted to be home when she got there.

Max went to her room and set down her backpack and took off her shoes. Then she headed back into the living room, turning on the TV to MTV. She hummed along to the music while paging through a magazine her mother had left on the coffee table.

The clock read 6:44 when Max heard the key in the lock. She jumped up and went to unlock the door, holding it open for her mother.

Susan’s arms were full, one arm clutching her work bag and the other holding a paper bag full of their takeout from Enzo’s. Max took the bag of food and carried it into the kitchen, unloading the cartons on the table.

“How was your first day, honey?” Susan asked, getting plates from the cupboards for their food. They’d spent the entirety of the past weekend unpacking, and there weren’t very many boxes left in the house.

“Good. I only have one class by myself, and it’s art.”

“That’s good, right? So you have classes with your friends?” Susan dumped her baked ziti from the takeout container onto her plate, so Max reached for the container that had her spaghetti and did the same.

“Yeah. I think it’s going to be good.”

Susan smiled, pausing with her fork in hand. “Good. And you’re feeling good?”

“ _Yes_ , Mom, I’m feeling good.” Her mother asked her this so much lately that it had begun to irritate her, but a small part of her was glad her mother kept asking. “Are you?”

Susan paused again, a piece of ziti now on her fork. “Yeah, I am.”

“Good.”

* * *

After dinner, Susan agreed to watch MTV with Max. Max wasn’t sure if she truly enjoyed watching MTV or if she just watched it to do something with Max, but she always made positive comments about the music videos Max liked and agreed with Max when she said she didn’t like certain videos or segments.

Susan went to bed around ten, but Max stayed up in her room. When her alarm clock said it was eleven, she picked up her radio off her bedside table and laid back on her bed like she had the first night in the new house.  
“Max, do you copy?”

She kicked her feet up in the air. “Yeah, I copy. Over.”

“Erica is driving me crazy, she wants me to bike with her to school tomorrow. I’m literally going to kill myself if I have to do that every day for the next three years. Over.”

Erica was in the sixth grade now. Lucas had made it abundantly clear that this proximity to her was annoying.

“So tell her you’ll only do it tomorrow, but no other days,” Max responded. “Over.”

“Come on, you know how she is. I have to say no or she will never give it up. Over.”

“So say no. Over.”

“If I say no, my mom will kill me!” Lucas was whispering, but his voice was steadily becoming less and less of a whisper. “Over.”

Thinking about Erica made Max think of Hawkins Middle, which made her think of her own first day there. Billy had always driven into the Hawkins High parking lot and forced her to walk over to Hawkins Middle. Billy himself had been a senior in high school then, which was the craziest part. In two years, she’d be that same age. She wondered if she’d be driving a car then.

“Max, are you there?”

Oh yeah, she had forgotten. “Sorry, I’m here. Just say no, seriously. She’ll deal. Over.”

“What are you thinking about? Over.” Of course it was obvious that her mind was wandering.

“Just how we’re getting old. I mean, god, that sounds dumb, we’re only fifteen. But, like, we’re sophomores now, I don’t know. Like, when I moved here, Nancy was a junior. That’s only one year older.”

“Nancy?”

Okay, she wasn’t really talking about Nancy.

“Billy,” Lucas said, guessing what she was thinking about. “Yeah, we’re basically senior citizens now. Just like Billy was.”

“Shut up, you know what I mean,” she said. “Over.” She’d been forgetting to say it.

“Yeah,” Lucas said, his voice now serious. “I do. But we have three years left before we go to college. That’s longer than I’ve even known you. Over.”

 _Longer than she’d known him_. It felt like forever that she had lived in Hawkins and known her friends. It felt like forever that she and Lucas had been like this. She’d forgotten that he and Dustin had once asked her to trick-or-treat with them and she’d acted like she didn’t care if they became friends or not.

“It’s been a long two years,” Max responded. “Over.”

She let her feet fall back down onto the bed, so she could see Billy’s posters on the wall in front of her. Two years ago, those had been hung up in Billy’s bedroom in their house in California. She had hated Billy and hated the posters. She would have never thought that two years later she would care so much that she could stay living in Hawkins. She would have never thought that Billy would be gone, and she would care so much that he was gone.

“I wouldn’t take any of it back,” Lucas was saying, the echo of his whisper radiating around the room, somehow mixing with the glow of the streetlights.

She didn’t wait for him to say _over_. “I wouldn’t either.”

Neil, Billy, the Mind Flayer, the car crash, her mother, moving. It was impossible to chart in her mind what parts of it had resulted in good and what parts had resulted in bad. She would do anything for Billy to have had another chance at life, but his death had made all of this happen, indirectly.

She had given up on trying to figure out if it was good or not. She had just decided to accept it, to not want to take it back. All she could do was be grateful for where she was now. After all, where she was now wasn’t the Upside Down. Not literally and not figuratively, either.

“We should go to the arcade tomorrow after school,” Lucas said. She didn’t know if he had changed the subject and she hadn’t noticed, or if he was just changing it now. “You were so close on Dig Dug last time. Over.”

“Yeah, we should. Even though I’ve already scored higher than Dustin ever will. Over.”

“Duh.” Lucas laughed. “You did that, like, two years ago.”

She remembered the first time she had entered MadMax into the Dig Dug at the Palace Arcade. That was how it had all started, though she hadn’t learned that was what had led Dustin and Lucas to want to befriend her until later.

“We should go to bed,” Max said. They talked every night now, between eleven and eleven-fifteen. It wasn’t quite eleven-fifteen, but it was close. “Do not bike with Erica tomorrow, I swear. Over.”

“Okay, god, I won’t. I love you, Max. Bye.”

“I love you. Bye.”

She put the radio back on her bedside table. Nostalgia had overcome her at the conversation, and she indulged in the thoughts for a minute. But it was late, and she needed to have the mental acuity that sleep brought her in order to score eight hundred and ninety thousand points on Dig Dug for a second time.

She was getting up at six-thirty, so she had a little over seven hours of sleep ahead of her if she fell asleep right away. It would do.

Last night, she’d fallen asleep in only twenty minutes. Tonight, she was going for fifteen.

She scooted so that her head was against her pillow, and pulled her blankets over her. She glanced around her room, taking the same silent inventory of the posters that she did every night. Then she closed her eyes.

Twelve minutes later, she was asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY LIKE IDRK WHAT TO SAY BECAUSE I am freaking out that this is over. I started this series a little over a month ago and I am not lying when I say I do not remember what I did before that. I have devoted basically all of my spare time to this story, sometimes writing like six hours in one day literally. I don't know what I am going to do with myself now that I am not constantly updating a story like this anymore, but I'm trying to see it as a good thing that I will have a break haha.
> 
> I will be writing more! I already plan to do a Billy/Max story within a few days and I have some plans for other Lumax oneshots etc. I don't think I'm going to be doing another story like this for a while, but we'll see how long I enjoy the break before I miss doing this again. I have no idea what long story I'd write though so for now it'll just be oneshots. If you don't read any more of my stuff then thank you so much for sticking with me through this story and I hope you all have like amazing lives and quarantine ends and you're all living it up!
> 
> THANK YOU SO MUCH for your lovely comments, like I can't express how much they have meant to me. The fact that there are people waiting every day to read content I produce is insane. I have looked forward to reading your comments every day probably even more than you guys have looked forward to reading the new chapters. I have been stressed at times writing this and then read comments and it always reinvigorated my motivation. If you guys had not commented on this story I am sure I would not have managed to write over 150k words in barely over a month. It might sound crazy but I feel like I've come to like know all of you personally. Again, I hope you all have amazing lives!
> 
> Thank you in general to everyone who has read this story, regardless of whether you commented! I started out writing this because I was interested in the plot myself but I discovered as a writer it really is more about your readers than yourself (idk if everyone else feels this way, but for me I don't know that I will ever read this story like I'd read someone else's story hahaha).
> 
> Ugh like I almost want to cry writing this, like this has been the biggest thing in my head for WEEKS. I feel like Max when she's always struggling to process shit haha, I'm struggling to process that this is over.
> 
> Additional comment I forgot to include: I have been through some of what Max through (okay we'll go with less than 50%, fortunately I have not gone through a number of things she experienced!) and have been depressed, but I do not consider myself to be depressed anymore and came out on the other side. If you are going through that right now, please know that it does get better, everyone says that I realize but I have personally seen the world get brighter. I hope you are all doing okay and if you related personally to this story, I promise you that though it is so hard sometimes, there is light at the other end of the tunnel!


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